From ASM to Advanced WAF: Advancing your Application Security
TL;DR: As of April 01, 2021, F5 has officially placed Application Security Manager (ASM) into End of Sale (EoS) status, signifying the eventual retirement of the product. (F5 Support Announcement - K72212499 ) Existing ASM, or BEST bundle customers, under a valid support contract running BIG-IP version 14.1 or greater can simply reactivate their licenses to instantly upgrade to Advanced WAF (AdvWAF) completely free of charge. Introduction Protecting your applications is becoming more challenging every day; applications are getting more complex, and attackers are getting more advanced. Over the years we have heard your feedback that managing a Web Application Firewall (WAF) can be cumbersome and you needed new solutions to protect against the latest generation of attacks. Advanced Web Application Firewall, or AdvWAF, is an enhanced version of the Application Security Manager (ASM) product that introduces new attack mitigation techniques and many quality-of-life features designed to reduce operational overhead. On April 01, 2021 – F5 started providing free upgrades for existing Application Security Manager customers to the Advanced WAF license. Keep on reading for: A brief history of ASM and AdvWAF How the AdvWAF license differs from ASM (ASM vs AdvWAF How to determine if your BIG-IPs are eligible for this free upgrade Performing the license upgrade How did we get here? For many years, ASM has been the gold standard Web Application Firewall (WAF) used by thousands of organizations to help secure their most mission-critical web applications from would-be attackers. F5 acquired the technology behind ASM in 2004 and subsequently ‘baked’ it into the BIG-IP product, immediately becoming the leading WAF product on the market. In 2018, after nearly 14 years of ASM development, F5 released the new, Advanced WAF license to address the latest threats. Since that release, both ASM and AdvWAF have coexisted, granting customers the flexibility to choose between the traditional or enhanced versions of the BIG-IP WAF product. As new features were released, they were almost always unique to AdvWAF, creating further divergence as time went on, and often sparking a few common questions (all of which we will inevitably answer in this very article) such as: Is ASM going away? What is the difference between ASM and AdvWAF? Will feature X come to ASM too? I need it! How do I upgrade from ASM to AdvWAF? Is the BEST bundle no longer really the BEST? To simplify things for our customers (and us too!), we decided to announce ASM as End of Sale (EoS), starting on April 01, 2021. This milestone, for those unfamiliar, means that the ASM product can no longer be purchased after April 01 of this year – it is in the first of 4 stages of product retirement. An important note is that no new features will be added to ASM going forward. So, what’s the difference? A common question we get often is “How do I migrate my policy from ASM to AdvWAF?” The good news is that the policies are functionally identical, running on BIG-IP, with the same web interface, and have the same learning engine and underlying behavior. In fact, our base policies can be shared across ASM, AdvWAF, and NGINX App Protect (NAP). The AdvWAF license simply unlocks additional features beyond what ASM has, that is it – all the core behaviors of the two products are identical otherwise. So, if an engineer is certified in ASM and has managed ASM security policies previously, they will be delighted to find that nothing has changed except for the addition of new features. This article does not aim to provide an exhaustive list of every feature difference between ASM and AdvWAF. Instead, below is a list of the most popular features introduced in the AdvWAF license that we hope you can take advantage of. At the end of the article, we provide more details on some of these features: Secure Guided Configurations Unlimited L7 Behavioral DoS DataSafe (Client-side encryption) OWASP Compliance Dashboard Threat Campaigns (includes Bot Signature updates) Additional ADC Functionality Micro-services protection Declarative WAF Automation I’m interested, what’s the catch? There is none! F5 is a security company first and foremost, with a mission to provide the technology necessary to secure our digital world. By providing important useability enhancements like Secure Guided Config and OWASP Compliance Dashboard for free to existing ASM customers, we aim to reduce the operational overhead associated with managing a WAF and help make applications safer than they were yesterday - it’s a win-win. If you currently own a STANDALONE, ADD-ON or BEST Bundle ASM product running version 14.1 or later with an active support contract, you are eligible to take advantage of this free upgrade. This upgrade does not apply to customers running ELA licensing or standalone ASM subscription licenses at this time. If you are running a BIG-IP Virtual Edition you must be running at least a V13 license. To perform the upgrade, all you need to do is simply REACTIVATE your license, THAT IS IT! There is no time limit to perform the license reactivation and this free upgrade offer does not expire. *Please keep in mind that re-activating your license does trigger a configuration load event which will cause a brief interruption in traffic processing; thus, it is always recommended to perform this in a maintenance window. Step 1: Step 2: Choose “Automatic” if your BIG-IP can communicate outbound to the Internet and talk to the F5 Licensing Server. Choose Manual if your BIG-IP cannot reach the F5 Licensing Server directly through the Internet. Click Next and the system will re-activate your license. After you’ve completed the license reactivation, the quickest way to know if you now have AdvWAF is by looking under the Security menu. If you see "Guided Configuration”, the license upgrade was completed successfully. You can also login to the console and look for the following feature flags in the /config/bigip.license file to confirm it was completed successfully by running: grep -e waf_gc -e mod_waf -e mod_datasafe bigip.license You should see the following flags set to enabled: Waf_gc: enabled Mod_waf: enabled Mod_datasafe: enabled *Please note that the GUI will still reference ASM in certain locations such as on the resource provisioning page; this is not an indication of any failure to upgrade to the AdvWAF license. *Under Resource Provisioning you should now see that FPS is licensed. This will need to be provisioned if you plan on utilizing the new AdvWAF DataSafe feature explained in more detail in the Appendix below. For customers with a large install base, you can perform license reactivation through the CLI. Please refer to the following article for instructions: https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K2595 Conclusion F5 Advanced WAF is an enhanced WAF license now available for free to all existing ASM customers running BIG-IP version 14.1 or greater, only requiring a simple license reactivation. The AdvWAF license will provide immediate value to your organization by delivering visibility into the OWASP Top 10 compliance of your applications, configuration wizards designed to build robust security policies quickly, enhanced automation capabilities, and more. If you are running ASM with BIG-IP version 14.1 or greater, what are you waiting for? (Please DO wait for your change window though 😊) Acknowledgments Thanks to Brad Scherer , John Marecki , Michael Everett , and Peter Scheffler for contributing to this article! Appendix: More details on select AdvWAF features Guided Configurations One of the most common requests we hear is, “can you make WAF easier?” If there was such a thing as an easy button for WAF configurations, Guided Configs are that button. Guided Configurations easily take you through complex configurations for various use-cases such as Web Apps, OWASP top 10, API Protection, DoS, and Bot Protection. L7DoS – Behavioral DoS Unlimited Behavioral DoS - (BaDoS) provides automatic protection against DoS attacks by analyzing traffic behavior using machine learning and data analysis. With ASM you were limited to applying this type of DoS profile to a maximum of 2 Virtual Servers. The AdvWAF license completely unlocks this capability, removing the 2 virtual server limitation from ASM. Working together with other BIG-IP DoS protections, Behavioral DoS examines traffic flowing between clients and application servers in data centers, and automatically establishes the baseline traffic/flow profiles for Layer 7 (HTTP) and Layers 3 and 4. DataSafe *FPS must be provisioned DataSafe is best explained as real-time L7 Data Encryption. Designed to protect websites from Trojan attacks by encrypting data at the application layer on the client side. Encryption is performed on the client-side using a public key generated by the BIG-IP system and provided uniquely per session. When the encrypted information is received by the BIG-IP system, it is decrypted using a private key that is kept on the server-side. Intended to protect, passwords, pins, PII, and PHI so that if any information is compromised via MITB or MITM it is useless to the attacker. DataSafe is included with the AdvWAF license, but the Fraud Protection Service (FPS) must be provisioned by going to System > Resource Provisioning: OWASP Compliance Dashboard Think your policy is air-tight? The OWASP Compliance Dashboard details the coverage of each security policy for the top 10 most critical web application security risks as well as the changes needed to meet OWASP compliance. Using the dashboard, you can quickly improve security risk coverage and perform security policy configuration changes. Threat Campaigns (includes Bot Signature updates) Threat campaigns allow you to do more with fewer resources. This feature is unlocked with the AdvWAF license, it, however, does require an additional paid subscription above and beyond that. This paid subscription does NOT come with the free AdvWAF license upgrade. F5’s Security Research Team (SRT) discovers attacks with honeypots – performs analysis and creates attack signatures you can use with your security policies. These signatures come with an extremely low false-positive rate, as they are strictly based on REAL attacks observed in the wild. The Threat Campaign subscription also adds bot signature updates as part of the solution. Additional ADC Functionality The AdvWAF license comes with all of the Application Delivery Controller (ADC) functionality required to both deliver and protect a web application. An ASM standalone license came with only a very limited subset of ADC functionality – a limit to the number of pool members, zero persistence profiles, and very few load balancing methods, just to name a few. This meant that you almost certainly required a Local Traffic Manager (LTM) license in addition to ASM, to successfully deliver an application. The AdvWAF license removes many of those limitations; Unlimited pool members, all HTTP/web pertinent persistence profiles, and most load balancing methods, for example.Automation of F5 Distributed Cloud Platform Client-Side Defense feature - Part I
Objective: The purpose of this article is to automate F5 Distributed Cloud Platform Client-Side Defense feature (F5 XC CSD) detection of malicious 3rd party domains and integrating code in GitHub. This article shows how we can use the Github available Actions workflow to provide the flexibility of updating existing infrastructure after every change using CI/CD event triggers. In this article we showed a small use case of CI/CD deployment using GitHub Actions, Terraform and Python developed in a generic way where users can bring up the complete setup within a few clicks. For more details about this feature please refer: https://community.f5.com/t5/technical-articles/javascript-supply-chains-magecart-and-f5-xc-client-side-defense/ta-p/296612 Overview: Client-Side Defense (CSD) feature provides a web application protection solution against Magecart style and similar malicious JavaScript attacks. This solution supports below features: Detection: A continuously evolving signal set allows CSD to understand when scripts on web pages exhibit signs of exfiltration. CSD detects network requests made by malicious scripts that attempt to exfiltrate PII data. Alerting: CSD generates timely alerts on the behavior of malicious scripts, provided by a continuously improving Analysis Engine. Mitigation: CSD detects threats in real-time and provides enforcement with one-click mitigation. Automation Design: As part of this automation, we are deploying a demo application in AWS and NGINX web service which hosts a simple web login page. The demo application has a malicious 3rd party Java script which captures the provided username and passwords during the login and sends these details to a malicious control server which keeps recording these credentials. Once the demo app is deployed, we are then configuring the origin pool and load balancer in F5 XC and generating web login traffic using Selenium script. Once traffic is logged in F5 XC platform, CSD feature will detect malicious domain network and will display domain in client-Side defense dashboard. After researching the 3rd party domain details customers can either approve or mitigate these network requests. Above workflow is integrated using GitHub Actions file which ensures dynamic deployment of the demo app and F5 XC load balancer which can be exposed using public domain name. Note: Currently this repo code covers automation till CSD malicious domain detection only and will cover mitigation part in the upcoming article of this series. Code is available here. Deployment steps: Security users can simply clone repo, update variables.tf as per their infra and run workflow which will bring entire infrastructure in few mins. They can login to the F5 XC console and explore the functionality of Client-Side Defense in an interactive way. Users can use this as a plugin to demonstrate CSD feature. Conclusion: This article demonstrated how we can leverage the power of CI/CD to create or upgrade our existing infrastructure and maintain the testing scope of Client Side Defense feature. For further information check the links below: F5 Distributed Cloud Platform (Link) F5 Distributed Cloud Client-Side Defense Overview (Link) F5 Distributed Cloud Client-Side Defense Docs (Link)How to deploy an F5XC SMSv2 site with the help of automation
To deploy an F5XC Customer Edge (CE) in SMSv2 mode with the help of automation, it is necessary to follow the three main steps below: Verify the prerequisites at the technical architecture level for the environment in which the CE will be deployed (public cloud or datacenter/private cloud) Create the necessary objects at the F5XC platform level Deploy the CE instance in the target environment We will provide more details for all the steps as well as the simplest Terraform skeleton code to deploy an F5XC CE in the main cloud environments (AWS, GCP and Azure). Step 1: verification of architecture prerequisites To be deployed, a CE must have an interface (which is and will always be its default interface) that has Internet access. This access is necessary to perform the installation steps and provide the "control plane" part to the CE. The name of this interface will be referred to as « Site Local Outside or SLO ». This Internet access can be provided in several ways: "Cloud provider" type site: Public IP address directly on the interface Private IP address on the interface and use of a NAT Gateway as default route Private IP address on the interface and use of a security appliance (firewall type, for example) as default route Private IP address on the interface and use of an explicit proxy Datacenter or "private cloud" type site: Private IP address on the interface and use of a security appliance (firewall type, for example) or router as default route Private IP address on the interface and use of an explicit proxy Furthermore, public IP addresses on the interface and "direct" routing to Internet It is highly recommended (not to say required) to add at least a second interface during the site first deployment. Because depending on the infrastructure (for example, GCP) it is not possible to add network interfaces after the creation of the VM. Even on platforms where adding a network interface is possible, a reboot of the F5XC CE is needed. An F5XC SMSv2 CE can have up to eight interfaces overall. Additional interfaces are (most of the time) used as “Site Local Inside or SLI” interfaces or "Segment interfaces" (that specific part will be covered in another article). Basic CE matrix flow. Interface Direction and protocols Use case / purpose SLO Egress – TCP 53 (DNS), TCP 443 (HTTPS), UDP 53 (DNS), UDP 123 (NTP), UDP 4500 (IPSEC) Registration, software download and upgrade, VPN tunnels towards F5XC infrastructure for control plane SLO Ingress – None RE / CE use case CE to CE use case by using F5 ADN SLO Ingress – UDP 4500 Site Mesh Group for direct CE to CE secure connectivity over SLO interface (no usage of F5 ADN) SLO Ingress – TCP 80 (HTTP), TCP 443 (HTTPS) HTTP/HTTPS LoadBalancer on the CE for WAAP use cases SLI Egress – Depends on the use case / application, but if the security constraint permits it, no restriction SLI Ingress – Depends on the use case / application, but if the security constraint permits it, no restriction For advanced details regarding IPs and domains used for: Registration / software upgrade Tunnels establishment towards F5XC infrastructure Please refer to: https://docs.cloud.f5.com/docs-v2/platform/reference/network-cloud-ref#new-secure-mesh-v2-sites Step 2: creation of necessary objects at the F5XC platform level This step will be performed by the Terraform script by: Creating an SMSv2 token Creating an F5XC site of SMSv2 type API certificate and terraform variables First, it is necessary to create an API certificate. Please follow the instructions in our official documentation here: https://docs.cloud.f5.com/docs-v2/administration/how-tos/user-mgmt/Credentials#generate-api-certificate-for-my-credentials or here: https://docs.cloud.f5.com/docs-v2/administration/how-tos/user-mgmt/Credentials#generate-api-certificate-for-service-credentials Depending on the type of API certificate you want to create and use (user credential or service credential). In the Terraform variables, those are the ones that you need to modify: The “location of the api key” should be the full path where your API P12 file is stored. variable "f5xc_api_p12_file" { type = string description = "F5XC tenant api key" default = "<location of the api key>" } If your F5XC console URL is https://mycompany.console.ves.volterra.io then the value for the f5xc_api_url will be https://mycompany.console.ves.volterra.io/api variable "f5xc_api_url" { type = string default = "https://<tenant name>.console.ves.volterra.io/api" } When using terraform, you will also need to export the P12 certificate password as an environment variable. export VES_P12_PASSWORD=<password of P12 cert> Creation of the SMSv2 token. This is achieved with the following Terraform code and with the “type = 1” parameter. # #F5XC objects creation # resource "volterra_token" "smsv2-token" { depends_on = [volterra_securemesh_site_v2.site] name = "${var.f5xc-ce-site-name}-token" namespace = "system" type = 1 site_name = volterra_securemesh_site_v2.site.name } Creation of the F5XC SMSv2 site. This is achieved with the following Terraform code (example for GCP). This is where you need to configure all the options you want to be applied at site creation. resource "volterra_securemesh_site_v2" "site" { name = format("%s-%s", var.f5xc-ce-site-name, random_id.suffix.hex) namespace = "system" block_all_services = false logs_streaming_disabled = true enable_ha = false labels = { "ves.io/provider" = "ves-io-GCP" } re_select { geo_proximity = true } gcp { not_managed {} } } For instance, if you want to use a corporate proxy and have the CE tunnels passing through the proxy, the following should be added: custom_proxy { enable_re_tunnel = true proxy_ip_address = "10.154.32.254" proxy_port = 8080 } And if you want to force CE to REs connectivity with SSL, the following should be added: tunnel_type = "SITE_TO_SITE_TUNNEL_SSL" Step 3: creation of the CE instance in the target environment This step will be performed by the Terraform script by: Generating a cloud-init file Creating the F5XC site instance in the environment based on the marketplace images or the available F5XC images How to list F5XC available images in Azure: az vm image list --all --publisher f5-networks --offer f5xc_customer_edge --sku f5xccebyol --output table | sort -k4 -V And check in the output, the one with the highest version. x64 f5xc_customer_edge f5-networks f5xccebyol f5-networks:f5xc_customer_edge:f5xccebyol:9.2025.17 9.2025.17 x64 f5xc_customer_edge f5-networks f5xccebyol f5-networks:f5xc_customer_edge:f5xccebyol:2024.40.1 2024.40.1 x64 f5xc_customer_edge f5-networks f5xccebyol f5-networks:f5xc_customer_edge:f5xccebyol:2024.40.2 2024.40.2 x64 f5xc_customer_edge f5-networks f5xccebyol f5-networks:f5xc_customer_edge:f5xccebyol:2024.44.1 2024.44.1 x64 f5xc_customer_edge f5-networks f5xccebyol_2 f5-networks:f5xc_customer_edge:f5xccebyol_2:2024.44.2 2024.44.2 Architecture Offer Publisher Sku Urn Version -------------- ------------------ ----------- ------------ ----------------------------------------------------- --------- We are going to re-use some of the parameters in the Terraform script, to instruct the Terraform code which image it should use. source_image_reference { publisher = "f5-networks" offer = "f5xc_customer_edge" sku = "f5xccebyol" version = "9.2025.17" } Also, for Azure, it’s needed to accept the legal terms of the F5XC CE image. This needs to be performed only once by running the following commands: Select the Azure subscription in which you are planning to deploy the F5XC CE: az account set -s <subscription-id> Accept the terms and conditions for the F5XC CE for this subscription: az vm image terms accept --publisher f5-networks --offer f5xc_customer_edge --plan f5xccebyol How to list F5XC available images in GCP: gcloud compute images list --project=f5-7626-networks-public --filter="name~'f5xc-ce'" --sort-by=~creationTimestamp --format="table(name,creationTimestamp)" And check in the output, the one with the highest version. NAME CREATION_TIMESTAMP f5xc-ce-crt-20250701-0123 2025-07-09T02:15:08.352-07:00 f5xc-cecrt-20250701-0099-9 2025-07-02T01:32:40.154-07:00 f5xc-ce-202505151709081 2025-06-25T22:31:23.295-07:00 How to list F5XC available images in AWS: aws ec2 describe-images \ --region eu-west-3 \ --filters "Name=name,Values=*f5xc-ce*" \ --query "reverse(sort_by(Images, &CreationDate))[*].{ImageId:ImageId,Name:Name,CreationDate:CreationDate}" \ --output table And check in the output, the ami with the latest creation date. Also, for AWS, it’s needed to accept the legal terms of the F5XC CE image. This needs to be performed only once. Go to this page in your AWS Console Then select "View purchase options" and then select "Subscribe". Putting everything together: Global overview We are going to use Azure as the target environment to deploy the F5XC CE. The CE will be deployed with two NICs, the SLO being in a public subnet and a public IP will be attached to the NIC. We assume that all the prerequisites from step 1 are met. Terraform skeleton for Azure is available here: https://github.com/veysph/Prod-TF/ It's not intended to be the perfect thing, just an example of the minimum basic things to deploy an F5XC SMSv2 CE with automation. Changes and enhancements based on the different needs you might have are more than welcome. It's really intended to be flexible and not too strict. Structure of the terraform directory: provider.tf contains everything that is related to the needed providers variables.tf contains all the variables used in the terraform files f5xc_sites.tf contains everything that is related to the F5XC objects creation main.tf contains everything to start the F5XC CE in the target environment Deployment Make all the relevant changes in variables.tf. Don't forget to export your P12 password as an environment variable (see Step 2, API certificate and terraform variables)! Then run, terraform init terraform plan terraform apply Should everything be correct at each step, you should get a CE object in the F5XC console, under Multi-Cloud Network Connect --> Manage --> Site Management --> Secure Mesh Sites v2VIPTest: Rapid Application Testing for F5 Environments
VIPTest is a Python-based tool for efficiently testing multiple URLs in F5 environments, allowing quick assessment of application behavior before and after configuration changes. It supports concurrent processing, handles various URL formats, and provides detailed reports on HTTP responses, TLS versions, and connectivity status, making it useful for migrations and routine maintenance.Moving HTTP Load Balancers Between F5 Distributed Cloud Namespaces — Why It's Harder Than You Think
The Problem If you have been working with F5 Distributed Cloud (XC) for a while, you have probably run into this: your namespace structure no longer reflects how your teams or applications are organized. Maybe the initial layout was a quick decision during onboarding. Maybe teams have merged, projects have grown, or your naming convention has evolved. Either way, you now want to move a handful of HTTP load balancers from one namespace to another. Simple enough, right? Just change the namespace field and save... Except you can't. There is no "move" operation on F5 XC - not in the UI, not in the API. Changing the namespace of a load balancer means deleting it in the source and re-creating it in the target. And that is where things get complicated. Why a Simple Delete-and-Recreate Is Not Enough On the surface, the API is straightforward: "GET" the config, "DELETE" the object, "POST" it into the new namespace. But a production HTTP load balancer on XC is rarely a standalone object. It sits at the top of a dependency tree that can include origin pools, health checks, TLS certificates, service policies, app firewalls, rate limiters, and more. Every one of those dependencies needs to be handled correctly - or the migration breaks. Here are the main challenges we might run into. Referential Integrity F5 XC enforces strict referential integrity. You cannot delete an origin pool that is still referenced by a load balancer. You cannot create a load balancer that references an origin pool that does not exist yet. This means the order of operations matters: delete top-down (LBs first, then dependencies), create bottom-up (dependencies first, then LBs). It also means that if two load balancers share an origin pool, you cannot move them independently. Delete the first LB, try to delete the shared pool, and the API returns a 409 Conflict because the second LB still references it. Both LBs - and all of their shared dependencies - have to be moved together as a single atomic unit. New CNAMEs After Every Move When you delete and re-create an HTTP load balancer, F5 XC assigns a new "host_name" (the CNAME target that your DNS records point to). If the LB uses Let's Encrypt auto-certificates, the ACME challenge CNAME changes too. That means after every move, someone needs to update external DNS records - and until that happens, the application is unreachable or the TLS certificate renewal fails. For tenants using XC-managed DNS zones with "Allow Application Loadbalancer Managed Records" enabled, this is handled automatically. But many customers manage their own DNS, and they need the old and new CNAME values for every moved LB. Certificates with Non-Portable Private Keys This one is subtle. When a load balancer uses a manually imported TLS certificate, the private key is stored in one of several formats: blindfolded (encrypted with the Volterra blindfold key) or clear secret. In both of these cases, the XC API never returns the private key material in its GET response. You get the certificate and metadata, but not the key. That means you cannot extract-and-recreate the certificate in a new namespace via the API. Cross-namespace certificate references (outside of "shared" namespace) are also not supported. So if an LB in namespace A uses a manually imported certificate stored in namespace A, and you want to move that LB to namespace B, you need to first manually upload the same certificate into namespace B (or into the "shared" namespace) before the migration can proceed. API Metadata The XC API returns a "referring_objects" field on every config GET response. In theory, this tells you what other objects reference a given resource - exactly what you need to know before deleting something. In practice, this field can be empty even when active references exist. The only reliable way to detect all external references is to actively scan: fetch the config of every load balancer in the namespace and check their specs for references to the objects you are about to move. Cross-Namespace References Are Not Allowed On F5 XC, an HTTP load balancer can only reference objects in its own namespace, in "system" or "shared" namespace. If your origin pool lives in namespace A and you move the LB to namespace B, the origin pool must either come along to namespace B or already exist there. There is no way to have the LB in namespace B point to a pool in namespace A. This means you need to discover the complete transitive dependency tree of every LB, determine which dependencies need to move, detect which are shared between multiple LBs, and batch everything accordingly. The Tool: XC Namespace migration To deal with all of this, (A)I built **xc-ns-mover** — a Python CLI tool that automates the entire process. It has two components: Scanner - scans all namespaces on your tenant, lists every HTTP load balancer, and writes a CSV report. This gives you the inventory to decide what to move. Mover - takes a CSV of load balancers, discovers all dependencies, groups LBs that share dependencies into atomic batches, runs a series of pre-flight checks, and then executes the migration - or generates a dry-run report so you can review everything first, or do the job manually (JSON Code blocks available in the report) What the Mover Does Before Touching Anything The mover runs six pre-flight phases before making any changes: Discovery and batching - fetches every LB config, walks the dependency tree, and uses a union-find algorithm to cluster LBs with shared dependencies into batches. External reference scan - for every dependency being moved, checks whether any LB outside the move list references it. If so, that dependency cannot be moved without breaking the external LB, and the batch is blocked. Conflict detection - lists all existing objects in the target namespace. If a name already exists, the user can skip the object or rename it with a configurable prefix (e.g., "migrated-my-pool"). All internal JSON references are updated automatically. Certificate pre-flight - identifies certificates with non-portable private keys, then searches the target and "shared" namespaces for a matching certificate by domain/SAN comparison (including wildcard matching per RFC 6125). If a match is found, the LB's certificate reference is automatically rewritten. If not, the batch is blocked until the certificate is manually created. DNS zone pre-flight - queries the tenant's DNS zones to detect which ones have managed LB records enabled. LBs under managed zones are flagged as "auto-managed" in the report — no manual DNS update needed. After all checks pass, the actual migration follows a strict order per batch: backup everything, delete top-down, create bottom-up, verify new CNAMEs. If anything fails, automatic rollback kicks in — objects created in the target are deleted, objects deleted from the source are restored from backups. The Reports Every run produces an HTML report. The dry-run report shows planned configurations, the full dependency graph , certificate issues, DNS changes required, and any blocking issues — all before a single API call mutates anything. The post-migration report includes old and new CNAME values, a DNS changes table with exactly which records need updating, and full configuration backups of everything that was touched. Things to Keep in Mind A few caveats that are worth highlighting: Brief interruption is unavoidable - The migration deletes and re-creates load balancers. During that window (typically seconds to a few minutes per batch), traffic to affected domains will be impacted. Plan a change window. Only HTTP load balancers are supported - TCP load balancers and other object types are not handled by this tool. DNS updates are your responsibility - The report gives you all the values - old CNAME, new CNAME, ACME challenge CNAME - but you need to update your DNS provider. Always run the dry-run first - The tool enforces this by default: it stores a fingerprint after a dry-run and verifies it before executing. If the config changes, a new dry-run is required. The project is open source and available on GitHub. This is privately maintained and not "officially supported": https://github.com/de1chk1nd/resources-and-tools/blob/main/tools/xc-ns-mover/README.md If you find bugs or have feature requests, please open a GitHub issue.Using Aliases to launch F5 AMI Images in AWS Marketplace
F5 lists 82 product offerings in the AWS Marketplace as Amazon Machine Images (AMI). Each version of each product in each AWS Region has a different AMI. That’s around 22,000 images! Each AMI is identified by an AMI ID. You use the AMI ID to indicate which AMI you want to use when launching an F5 product. You can find AMI IDs using the AWS Web Console, but the AWS CLI is the best tool for the job. Searching for AMIs using the AWS CLI Here’s how you find the AMI IDs for version 17.5.1.2 of BIG-IP Virtual Edition in the us-east-1 AWS region: aws ec2 describe-images --owners aws-marketplace --filters 'Name=name,Values=F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2*' --query "sort_by(Images,&Name)[:]. {Description: Description, Id:ImageId }" --region us-east-1 --output table ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | DescribeImages | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------------------+ | Description | Id | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------------------+ | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 BYOL-All Modules 1Boot Loc-250916013758 | ami-0948eabdf29ef2a8f | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 BYOL-All Modules 2Boot Loc-250916015535 | ami-0cb3aaa67967ad029 | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 BYOL-LTM 1Boot Loc-250916013616 | ami-05d70b82c9031ff39 | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 BYOL-LTM 2Boot Loc-250916014744 | ami-0b6021cc939308f3e | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 BYOL-encrypted-threat-protection-250916015535 | ami-01f4fde300d3763be | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-AWF Plus 16vCPU-250916015534 | ami-015474056159387ac | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Adv WAF Plus 200Mbps-250916015522 | ami-06ce5b03dce2a059d | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Adv WAF Plus 25Mbps-250916015520 | ami-0826808708df97480 | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Adv WAF Plus 3Gbps-250916015523 | ami-08c63c8f7ca71cf37 | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Best Plus 10Gbps-250916015532 | ami-0e806ef17838760e4 | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Best Plus 1Gbps-250916015530 | ami-05e31c2a0ac9ec050 | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Best Plus 200Mbps-250916015528 | ami-02dc0995af98d0710 | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Best Plus 25Mbps-250916015527 | ami-08b8f2daefde800e9 | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Best Plus 5Gbps-250916015531 | ami-0d16154bb1102f3e9 | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Better 10Gbps-250916015512 | ami-05c9527fff191feba | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Better 1Gbps-250916015510 | ami-05ce2932601070d5c | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Better 200Mbps-250916015508 | ami-0f6044db3900ba46f | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Better 25Mbps-250916014542 | ami-0de57aba160170358 | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Better 5Gbps-250916015511 | ami-04271103ab2d1369d | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Good 10Gbps-250916014739 | ami-0d06d2a097d7bb47a | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Good 1Gbps-250916014737 | ami-01707e969ebcc6138 | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Good 200Mbps-250916014735 | ami-06f9a44562d94f992 | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Good 25Mbps-250916013626 | ami-0aa2bca574c66af13 | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Good 5Gbps-250916014738 | ami-01951e02c52deef85 | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-PVE Adv WAF Plus 200Mbps-0916015525 | ami-03df50dfc04f19df5 | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-PVE Adv WAF Plus 25Mbps-50916015524 | ami-0777c069eaae20ea1 | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------------------+ This command shows all 17.5.1* releases of the "PayGo Good 1Gbps" flavor of BIG-IP in the us-west-1 region sorted by newest release first: aws ec2 describe-images --owners aws-marketplace --filters 'Name=name,Values=F5 BIGIP-17.5.1*PAYG-Good 1Gbps*' --query "reverse(sort_by(Images,&CreationDate))[:]. {Description: Name, Id:ImageId , date:CreationDate}" --region us-west-1 --output table ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | DescribeImages | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------------+ | Description | Id | date | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------------+ | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1.2-0.0.5 PAYG-Good 1Gbps-250916014737-7fb2f9db-2a12-4915-9abb-045b6388cccd | ami-0de8ca1229be5f7fe | 2025-09-16T23:12:28.000Z | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1-0.80.7 PAYG-Good 1Gbps-250811055424-7fb2f9db-2a12-4915-9abb-045b6388cccd | ami-09afcec6f36494382 | 2025-08-15T19:03:23.000Z | | F5 BIGIP-17.5.1-0.0.7 PAYG-Good 1Gbps-250618090310-7fb2f9db-2a12-4915-9abb-045b6388cccd | ami-03e389e112872fd53 | 2025-07-01T06:00:44.000Z | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------------+ Notice that the same BIG-IP VE release has a different AMI ID in each AWS region. Attempting to launch a product in one region using an AMI ID from a different region will fail. This causes a problem when a shell script or automation tool is used to launch new EC2 instances and the AMI IDs have been hardcoded for one region and you attempt to use it in another. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a single AMI identifier that works in all AWS regions? Introducing AMI Aliases The Ami Alias is a similar ID to the AMI ID, but it’s easier to use in automation. An AMI alias has the form /aws/service/marketplace/prod-<identifier>/<version> , for example, "PayGo Good 1Gbps" /aws/service/marketplace/prod-s6e6miuci4yts/17.5.1.2-0.0.5 You can use this Ami Alias ID in any Region, and AWS automatically maps it to the correct Regional AMI ID. BIG-IP AMI Alias Identifiers F5 Advanced WAF with LTM, IPI, and Threat Campaigns (PAYG, 16vCPU) prod-qqgc2ltsirpio F5 Advanced WAF with LTM, IPI, and Threat Campaigns (PAYG, 200Mbps) prod-yajbds56coa24 F5 Advanced WAF with LTM, IPI, and Threat Campaigns (PAYG, 25Mbps) prod-qiufc36l6sepa F5 Advanced WAF with LTM, IPI, and Threat Campaigns (PAYG, 3Gbps) prod-fp5qrfirjnnty F5 BIG-IP BEST with IPI and Threat Campaigns (PAYG, 10Gbps) prod-w2p3rtkjrjmw6 F5 BIG-IP BEST with IPI and Threat Campaigns (PAYG, 1Gbps) prod-g3tye45sqm5d4 F5 BIG-IP BEST with IPI and Threat Campaigns (PAYG, 200Mbps) prod-dnpovgowtyz3o F5 BIG-IP BEST with IPI and Threat Campaigns (PAYG, 25Mbps) prod-wjoyowh6kba46 F5 BIG-IP BEST with IPI and Threat Campaigns (PAYG, 5Gbps) prod-hlx7g47cksafk F5 BIG-IP VE - ALL (BYOL, 1 Boot Location) prod-zvs3u7ov36lig F5 BIG-IP VE - ALL (BYOL, 2 Boot Locations) prod-ubfqxbuqpsiei F5 BIG-IP VE - LTM/DNS (BYOL, 1 Boot Location) prod-uqhc6th7ni37m F5 BIG-IP VE - LTM/DNS (BYOL, 2 Boot Locations) prod-o7jz5ohvldaxg F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition - BETTER (PAYG, 10Gbps) prod-emsxkvkzwvs3o F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition - BETTER (PAYG, 1Gbps) prod-4idzu4qtdmzjg F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition - BETTER (PAYG, 200Mbps) prod-firaggo6h7bt6 F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition - BETTER (PAYG, 25Mbps) prod-wijbh7ib34hyy F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition - BETTER (PAYG, 5Gbps) prod-rfglxslpwq64g F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition - GOOD (PAYG, 10Gbps) prod-54qdbqglgkiue F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition - GOOD (PAYG, 1Gbps) prod-s6e6miuci4yts F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition - GOOD (PAYG, 200Mbps) prod-ynybgkyvilzrs F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition - GOOD (PAYG, 25Mbps) prod-6zmxdpj4u4l5g F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition - GOOD (PAYG, 5Gbps) prod-3ze6zaohqssua F5 BIG-IQ Virtual Edition - (BYOL) prod-igv63dkxhub54 F5 Encrypted Threat Protection prod-bbtl6iceizxoi F5 Per-App-VE Advanced WAF with LTM, IPI, TC (PAYG, 200Mbps) prod-gkzfxpnvn53v2 F5 Per-App-VE Advanced WAF with LTM, IPI, TC (PAYG, 25Mbps) prod-qu34r4gipys4s NGINX Plus Alias Identifiers NGINX Plus Basic - Amazon Linux 2 (LTS) AMI prod-jhxdrfyy2jtva NGINX Plus Developer - Amazon Linux 2 (LTS) prod-kbeepohgkgkxi NGINX Plus Developer - Amazon Linux 2 (LTS) ARM Graviton prod-vulv7pmlqjweq NGINX Plus Developer - Amazon Linux 2023 prod-2zvigd3ltowyy NGINX Plus Developer - Amazon Linux 2023 ARM Graviton prod-icspnobisidru NGINX Plus Developer - RHEL 8 prod-tquzaepylai4i NGINX Plus Developer - RHEL 9 prod-hwl4zfgzccjye NGINX Plus Developer - Ubuntu 22.04 prod-23ixzkz3wt5oq NGINX Plus Developer - Ubuntu 24.04 prod-tqr7jcokfd7cw NGINX Plus FIPS Premium - RHEL 9 prod-v6fhyzzkby6c2 NGINX Plus Premium - Amazon Linux 2 (LTS) AMI prod-4dput2e45kkfq NGINX Plus Premium - Amazon Linux 2 (LTS) ARM Graviton prod-56qba3nacijjk NGINX Plus Premium - Amazon Linux 2023 prod-w6xf4fmhpc6ju NGINX Plus Premium - Amazon Linux 2023 ARM Graviton prod-e2iwqrpted4kk NGINX Plus Premium - RHEL 8 AMI prod-m2v4zstxasp6s NGINX Plus Premium - RHEL 9 prod-rytmqzlxdneig NGINX Plus Premium - Ubuntu 22.04 prod-dtm5ujpv7kkro NGINX Plus Premium - Ubuntu 24.04 prod-opg2qh33mi4pk NGINX Plus Standard - Amazon Linux 2 (LTS) AMI prod-mdgdnfftmj7se NGINX Plus Standard - Amazon Linux 2 (LTS) ARM Graviton prod-2kagbnj7ij6zi NGINX Plus Standard - Amazon Linux 2023 prod-i25cyug3btfvk NGINX Plus Standard - Amazon Linux 2023 ARM Graviton prod-6s5rvlqlgrt74 NGINX Plus Standard - RHEL 8 prod-ebhpntvlfwluc NGINX Plus Standard - RHEL 9 prod-3e7rk2ombbpfa NGINX Plus Standard - Ubuntu 22.04 prod-7rhflwjy5357e NGINX Plus Standard - Ubuntu 24.04 prod-b4rly35ct3dlc NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect Developer - Amazon Linux 2 prod-pjmfzy5htmaks NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect Developer - Debian 11 prod-ixsytlu2eluqa NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect Developer - RHEL 8 prod-6v57ggy3dqb6c NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect Developer - Ubuntu 20.04 prod-4a4g7h7mpepas NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect DoS Developer - Amazon Linux 2023 prod-fmqayhbsryoz2 NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect DoS Developer - Debian 11 prod-4e5fwakhrn36y NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect DoS Developer - RHEL 8 prod-ubid75ixhf34a NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect DoS Developer - RHEL 9 prod-gg7mi5njfuqcw NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect DoS Developer - Ubuntu 20.04 prod-qiwzff7orqrmy NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect DoS Developer - Ubuntu 22.04 prod-h564ffpizhvic NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect DoS Developer - Ubuntu 24.04 prod-wckvpxkzj7fvk NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect DoS Premium - Amazon Linux 2023 prod-lza5c4nhqafpk NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect DoS Premium - Debian 11 prod-ych3dq3r44gl2 NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect DoS Premium - RHEL 8 prod-266ker45aot7g NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect DoS Premium - RHEL 9 prod-6qrqjtainjlaa NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect DoS Premium - Ubuntu 20.04 prod-hagmbnluc5zmw NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect DoS Premium - Ubuntu 22.04 prod-y5iwq6gk4x4yq NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect DoS Premium - Ubuntu 24.04 prod-k3cb7avaushvq NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect Premium - Amazon Linux 2 prod-tlghtvo66zs5u NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect Premium - Debian 11 prod-6kfdotc3mw67o NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect Premium - RHEL 8 prod-okwnxdlnkmqhu NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect Premium - Ubuntu 20.04 prod-5wn6ltuzpws4m NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect WAF + DoS Premium - Amazon Linux 2023 prod-mualblirvfcqi NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect WAF + DoS Premium - Debian 11 prod-k2rimvjqipvm2 NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect WAF + DoS Premium - RHEL 8 prod-6nlubep3hg4go NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect WAF + DoS Premium - Ubuntu 18.04 prod-f2diywsozd22m NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect WAF + DoS Premium - Ubuntu 20.04 prod-ajcsh5wsfuen2 NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect WAF + DoS Premium - Ubuntu 22.04 prod-6adjgf6yl7hek NGINX Plus with NGINX App Protect WAF + DoS Premium - Ubuntu 24.04 prod-autki7guiiqio Using AMI Aliases for BIG-IP The following example shows using an AMI alias to launch a new "F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition - GOOD (PAYG, 1Gbps)" instance version 17.5.1.2-0.0.5 by using the AWS CLI. aws ec2 run-instances --image-id resolve:ssm:/aws/service/marketplace/prod-s6e6miuci4yts/17.5.1.2-0.0.5 --instance-type m5.xlarge --key-name MyKeyPair The next example shows a CloudFormation template that accepts the AMI alias as an input parameter to create an instance. AWSTemplateFormatVersion: 2010-09-09 Parameters: AmiAlias: Description: AMI alias Type: 'String' Resources: MyEC2Instance: Type: AWS::EC2::Instance Properties: ImageId: !Sub "resolve:ssm:${AmiAlias}" InstanceType: "g4dn.xlarge" Tags: -Key: "Created from" Value: !Ref AmiAlias Using AMI Aliases for NGINX Plus NGINX Plus images in the AWS Marketplace are not version specific, so just use "latest" as the version to launch. For example, this will launch NGINX Plus Premium on Ubuntu 24.04: aws ec2 run-instances --image-id resolve:ssm:/aws/service/marketplace/prod-opg2qh33mi4pk/latest --instance-type c5.large --key-name MyKeyPair Finding AMI Aliases in AWS Marketplace AMI aliases are new to the AWS Marketplace, so not all products have them. To locate the alias for an AMI you use often, you need to resort to the AWS Marketplace web console. Here are the step-by-step instructions provided by Amazon: 1. Navigate to AWS Marketplace Go to AWS Marketplace Sign in to your AWS account 2. Find and Subscribe to the Product Search for or browse to find your desired product Click on the product listing Click "Continue to Subscribe" Accept the terms and subscribe to the product 3. Configure the Product After subscribing, click "Continue to Configuration" Select your desired: Delivery Method (if multiple options are available) Software Version Region 4. Locate the AMI Alias At the bottom of the configuration page, you'll see: AMI ID: ami-1234567890EXAMPLE AMI Alias: /aws/service/marketplace/prod-<identifier>/<version> New Tools for Your AMI Hunt In this article, we focused on using AMI Aliases to select the right F5 product to launch in AWS EC2. But, there’s one more takeaway. Scroll back up to the top of this page and take a closer look at the "aws ec2 describe-images" commands. These commands use JMESpath to filter, sort, and format the output. Find out more about filtering the output of AWS CLI commands here.Automation of Malicious User detection/mitigation using F5 Distributed Cloud Platform
Introduction: In today’s modern world where attackers are leveraging the benefits of readily available automated attack tools it is highly recommended to go with security driven framework which helps in negating the impact of possible attack vectors used by these attackers. F5 Distributed Cloud (F5 XC) platform comes with a wide range of signature set for known attacks and has a machine learning capability to mitigate possible threats from malicious users by analyzing the user behavior. In this article, we have discussed the demo scenarios we are covering as part of the automation using GitHub Actions, Terraform and Python. For more information, please have a look at these articles: AI/ML detection of Malicious Users using F5 Distributed Cloud WAAP – Part I AI/ML detection of Malicious Users using F5 Distributed Cloud WAAP – Part II AI/ML detection of Malicious Users using F5 Distributed Cloud WAAP – Part III Demonstration: We’ve come up with automation scripts to build up the infrastructure for malicious user detection and mitigation in XC console and malicious events triggering script. You can use the github workflows to see how effectively XC WAAP can detect and mitigate malicious user events The repository consists of two workflows covering demo scenarios for malicious user detection and mitigation using XC WAAP: Single LB malicious user detection and default mitigation of high-risk IPs: In this scenario we are bringing up a HTTP load balancer and configure it to detect and mitigate malicious user events using default mitigation rule. In the second part of this demo, we will generate tor requests and fetch the logs from XC console to validate the detection and mitigation action Multi LB malicious user detection and custom mitigation of WAF security events: In this scenario we are bringing up a HTTPS load balancer with an app type enabling detection with custom app settings object, app firewall in blocking mode and custom malicious user mitigation policy. In the second part of this scenario, we are generating XSS attacks and validate the logs fetched from XC console. Repository Link: Automation demonstration for malicious user detection and mitigation feature of F5 XC Platform Conclusion: By using the repository, you will see F5 Distributed Cloud platform’s efficiency to detect users exhibiting suspicious behavior and perform mitigation actions on them safeguarding end application from possible attacks Hope you liked the demonstration. Please feel free to raise your concerns via GitHub. Thank you! For further information click the links below: F5 Distributed Cloud Platform F5 Distributed Cloud Services F5 Distributed Cloud WAAPBulk-Create Secondary DNS Zones in F5 Distributed Cloud (via API)
If you’ve ever had to onboard dozens (or hundreds) of domains as secondary DNS zones in F5 Distributed Cloud (XC), you know the drill: click through the console, fill in the domain, add the primary server IP, save, repeat. It works - but it doesn’t scale. I ran into exactly this situation recently and figured a quick shell script would save me (and maybe you) a lot of clicking. What it does The script reads a simple text file - one domain per line, comma-separated with its primary DNS server IPs - and creates the corresponding secondary DNS zones via the F5 XC API. The input file looks like this: example.com, 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2 example.org, 192.168.1.1 internal.example.net, 172.16.0.1, 172.16.0.2, 172.16.0.3 Run the script, and it works through the list one by one: $ ./create_secondary_dns.sh Starting secondary DNS zone creation... Tenant : acmecorp --- [line 1] Creating secondary zone: example.com (primaries: 10.0.0.1 10.0.0.2) [line 1] OK - example.com created (HTTP 200) [line 2] Creating secondary zone: example.org (primaries: 192.168.1.1) [line 2] OK - example.org created (HTTP 200) --- Done. Success: 2, Failed: 0, Total lines: 2 That’s it. No Python, no Terraform, no extra frameworks - just bash, curl, and jq. TSIG support If your primary DNS servers require TSIG authentication for zone transfers, the script handles that too. Set the TSIG key name, algorithm, and secret in the configuration block, and the script will encrypt the secret locally using vesctl (the F5 XC CLI) before sending it to the API. If vesctl isn’t installed yet, the script downloads it automatically. If you don’t need TSIG, just leave the TSIG variables empty and the script skips that part entirely. Getting started 1. Clone the repo and navigate to the tool: git clone https://github.com/de1chk1nd/resources-and-tools.git cd resources-and-tools/tools/dns-secondary 2. Create your domain list: cp domains.txt.example domains.txt 3. Open the script and fill in your tenant name and API token: vi create_secondary_dns.sh 4. Run it: chmod +x create_secondary_dns.sh ./create_secondary_dns.sh The full README in the repository covers all configuration options, dependencies, and common error messages. What happens when something goes wrong? The script validates every line before hitting the API - domain names are checked for valid DNS characters, IP addresses are checked for valid IPv4 format. If a line is malformed, it’s skipped with a clear message and the script moves on to the next one. If a zone already exists in XC, the API returns a 409 and the script logs it as a failure but keeps going. At the end, you get a summary: how many succeeded, how many failed. A note on the repository This is a personal project, not an official F5 tool. It’s not supported by F5 and comes with no warranty. That said, it works well for my use cases and I hope it’s useful for yours too. If you run into issues or have suggestions, please open an issue on GitHub: GIT Repo The script lives here: DNS ToolLeveraging BGP and ECMP for F5 Distributed Cloud Customer Edge, Part Two
Introduction This is the second part of our series on leveraging BGP and ECMP for F5 Distributed Cloud Customer Edge deployments. In Part One, we explored the high-level concepts, architecture decisions, and design principles that make BGP and ECMP such a powerful combination for Customer Edge high availability and maintenance operations. This article provides step-by-step implementation guidance, including: High-level and low-level architecture diagrams Complete BGP peering and routing policy configuration in F5 Distributed Cloud Console Practical configuration examples for Fortinet FortiGate and Palo Alto Networks firewalls By the end of this article, you'll have everything you need to implement BGP-based high availability for your Customer Edge deployment. Architecture Overview Before diving into configuration, let’s establish a clear picture of the architecture we’re implementing. We’ll examine this from two perspectives: a high-level logical view and a detailed low-level view showing specific IP addressing and AS numbers. High-Level Architecture The high-level architecture illustrates the fundamental traffic flow and BGP relationships in our deployment: Key Components: Component Role Internet External connectivity to the network Next-Generation Firewall Acts as the BGP peer and performs ECMP distribution to Customer Edge nodes Customer Edge Virtual Site Two or more CE nodes advertising identical VIP prefixes via BGP The architecture follows a straightforward principle: the upstream firewall establishes BGP peering with each CE node. Each CE advertises its VIP addresses as /32 routes. The firewall, seeing multiple equal-cost paths to the same destination, distributes incoming traffic across all available CE nodes using ECMP. Low-Level Architecture with IP Addressing The low-level diagram provides the specific details needed for implementation, including IP addresses and AS numbers: Network Details: Component IP Address Role Firewall (Inside) 10.154.4.119/24 BGP Peer, ECMP Router CE1 (Outside) 10.154.4.160/24 Customer Edge Node 1 CE2 (Outside) 10.154.4.33/24 Customer Edge Node 2 Global VIP 192.168.100.10/32 Load Balancer VIP BGP Configuration: Parameter Firewall Customer Edge AS Number 65001 65002 Router ID 10.154.4.119 Auto-assigned based on interface IP Advertised Prefix None 192.168.100.0/24 le 32 This configuration uses eBGP (External BGP) between the firewall and CE nodes, with different AS numbers for each. The CE nodes share the same AS number (65002), which is the standard approach for multi-node CE deployments advertising the same VIP prefixes. Configuring BGP in F5 Distributed Cloud Console The F5 Distributed Cloud Console provides a centralized interface for configuring BGP peering and routing policies on your Customer Edge nodes. This section walks you through the complete configuration process. Step 1: Configure the BGP peering Go to: Multi-Cloud Network Connect --> Manage --> Networking --> External Connectivity --> BGP Peers & Policies Click on Add BGP Peer Then add the following information: Object name Site where to apply this BGP configuration ASN Router ID Here is an example of the required parameters. Then click on Peers --> Add Item And filled the relevant fields like below by adapting the parameters for your requirements. Step 2: Configure the BGP routing policies Go to: Multi-Cloud Network Connect --> Manage --> Networking --> External Connectivity --> BGP Peers & Policies --> BGP Routing Policies Click on Add BGP Routing Policy Add a name for your BGP routing policy object and click on Configure to add the rules. Click on Add Item to add a rule. Here we are going to allow the /32 prefixes from our VIP subnet (192.168.100.0/24). Save the BGP Routing Policy Repeat the action to create another BGP routing policy with the exact same parameters except the Action Type, which should be of type Deny. Now we have two BGP routing policies: One to allow the VIP prefixes (for normal operations) One to deny the VIP prefixes (for maintenance mode) We still need to a a third and final BGP routing policy, in order to deny any prefixes on the CE. For that, create a third BGP routing policy with this match. Step 3: Apply the BGP routing policies To apply the BGP routing policies in your BGP peer object, edit the Peer and: Enable the BGP routing policy Apply the BGP routing policy objects created before for Inbound and Outbound Fortinet FortiGate Configuration FortiGate firewalls are widely deployed as network security appliances and support robust BGP capabilities. This section provides the minimum configuration for establishing BGP peering with Customer Edge nodes and enabling ECMP load distribution. Step 1: Configure the Router ID and AS Number Configure the basic BGP settings: config router bgp set as 65001 set router-id 10.154.4.119 set ebgp-multipath enable Step 2: Configure BGP Neighbors Add each CE node as a BGP neighbor: config neighbor edit "10.154.4.160" set remote-as 65002 set route-map-in "ACCEPT-CE-VIPS" set route-map-out "DENY-ALL" set soft-reconfiguration enable next edit "10.154.4.33" set remote-as 65002 set route-map-in "ACCEPT-CE-VIPS" set route-map-out "DENY-ALL" set soft-reconfiguration enable next end end Step 3: Create Prefix List for VIP Range Define the prefix list that matches the CE VIP range: config router prefix-list edit "CE-VIP-PREFIXES" config rule edit 1 set prefix 192.168.100.0 255.255.255.0 set ge 32 set le 32 next end next end Important: The ge 32 and le 32 parameters ensure we only match /32 prefixes within the 192.168.100.0/24 range, which is exactly what CE nodes advertise for their VIPs. Step 4: Create Route Maps Configure route maps to implement the filtering policies: Inbound Route Map (Accept VIP prefixes): config router route-map edit "ACCEPT-CE-VIPS" config rule edit 1 set match-ip-address "CE-VIP-PREFIXES" next end next end Outbound Route Map (Deny all advertisements): config router route-map edit "DENY-ALL" config rule edit 1 set action deny next end next end Step 5: Verify BGP Configuration After applying the configuration, verify the BGP sessions and routes: Check BGP neighbor status: get router info bgp summary VRF 0 BGP router identifier 10.154.4.119, local AS number 65001 BGP table version is 4 1 BGP AS-PATH entries 0 BGP community entries Neighbor V AS MsgRcvd MsgSent TblVer InQ OutQ Up/Down State/PfxRcd 10.154.4.33 4 65002 2092 2365 0 0 0 00:05:33 1 10.154.4.160 4 65002 2074 2346 0 0 0 00:14:14 1 Total number of neighbors 2 Verify ECMP routes: get router info routing-table bgp Routing table for VRF=0 B 192.168.100.10/32 [20/255] via 10.154.4.160 (recursive is directly connected, port2), 00:00:11, [1/0] [20/255] via 10.154.4.33 (recursive is directly connected, port2), 00:00:11, [1/0] Palo Alto Networks Configuration Palo Alto Networks firewalls provide enterprise-grade security with comprehensive routing capabilities. This section covers the minimum BGP configuration for peering with Customer Edge nodes. Note: This part is assuming that Palo Alto firewall is configured in the new "Advanced Routing Engine" mode. And we will use the logical-router named "default". Step 1: Configure ECMP parameters set network logical-router default vrf default ecmp enable yes set network logical-router default vrf default ecmp max-path 4 set network logical-router default vrf default ecmp algorithm ip-hash Step 2: Configure objects IPs and firewall rules for BGP peering set address CE1 ip-netmask 10.154.4.160/32 set address CE2 ip-netmask 10.154.4.33/32 set address-group BGP_PEERS static [ CE1 CE2 ] set address LOCAL_BGP_IP ip-netmask 10.154.4.119/32 set rulebase security rules ALLOW_BGP from service set rulebase security rules ALLOW_BGP to service set rulebase security rules ALLOW_BGP source LOCAL_BGP_IP set rulebase security rules ALLOW_BGP destination BGP_PEERS set rulebase security rules ALLOW_BGP application bgp set rulebase security rules ALLOW_BGP service application-default set rulebase security rules ALLOW_BGP action allow Step 3: Palo Alto Configuration Summary (CLI Format) set network routing-profile filters prefix-list ALLOWED_PREFIXES type ipv4 ipv4-entry 1 prefix entry network 192.168.100.0/24 set network routing-profile filters prefix-list ALLOWED_PREFIXES type ipv4 ipv4-entry 1 prefix entry greater-than-or-equal 32 set network routing-profile filters prefix-list ALLOWED_PREFIXES type ipv4 ipv4-entry 1 prefix entry less-than-or-equal 32 set network routing-profile filters prefix-list ALLOWED_PREFIXES type ipv4 ipv4-entry 1 action permit set network routing-profile filters prefix-list ALLOWED_PREFIXES description "Allow only m32 inside 192.168.100.0m24" set network routing-profile filters prefix-list DENY_ALL type ipv4 ipv4-entry 1 prefix entry network 0.0.0.0/0 set network routing-profile filters prefix-list DENY_ALL type ipv4 ipv4-entry 1 prefix entry greater-than-or-equal 0 set network routing-profile filters prefix-list DENY_ALL type ipv4 ipv4-entry 1 prefix entry less-than-or-equal 32 set network routing-profile filters prefix-list DENY_ALL type ipv4 ipv4-entry 1 action deny set network routing-profile filters prefix-list DENY_ALL description "Deny all prefixes" set network routing-profile bgp filtering-profile FILTER_INBOUND ipv4 unicast inbound-network-filters prefix-list ALLOWED_PREFIXES set network routing-profile bgp filtering-profile FILTER_OUTBOUND ipv4 unicast inbound-network-filters prefix-list DENY_ALL set network logical-router default vrf default bgp router-id 10.154.4.119 set network logical-router default vrf default bgp local-as 65001 set network logical-router default vrf default bgp install-route yes set network logical-router default vrf default bgp enable yes set network logical-router default vrf default bgp peer-group BGP_PEERS type ebgp set network logical-router default vrf default bgp peer-group BGP_PEERS address-family ipv4 ipv4-unicast-default set network logical-router default vrf default bgp peer-group BGP_PEERS filtering-profile ipv4 FILTER_INBOUND set network logical-router default vrf default bgp peer-group BGP_PEERS filtering-profile ipv4 FILTER_OUTBOUND set network logical-router default vrf default bgp peer-group BGP_PEERS peer CE1 peer-as 65002 set network logical-router default vrf default bgp peer-group BGP_PEERS peer CE1 local-address interface ethernet1/2 set network logical-router default vrf default bgp peer-group BGP_PEERS peer CE1 local-address ip svc-intf-ip set network logical-router default vrf default bgp peer-group BGP_PEERS peer CE1 peer-address ip 10.154.4.160 set network logical-router default vrf default bgp peer-group BGP_PEERS peer CE2 peer-as 65002 set network logical-router default vrf default bgp peer-group BGP_PEERS peer CE2 local-address interface ethernet1/2 set network logical-router default vrf default bgp peer-group BGP_PEERS peer CE2 local-address ip svc-intf-ip set network logical-router default vrf default bgp peer-group BGP_PEERS peer CE2 peer-address ip 10.154.4.33 Step 4: Verify BGP Configuration After committing the configuration, verify the BGP sessions and routes: Check BGP neighbor status: run show advanced-routing bgp peer status logical-router default Logical Router: default ============== Peer Name: CE2 BGP State: Established, up for 00:01:55 Peer Name: CE1 BGP State: Established, up for 00:00:44 Verify ECMP routes: run show advanced-routing route logical-router default Logical Router: default ========================== flags: A:active, E:ecmp, R:recursive, Oi:ospf intra-area, Oo:ospf inter-area, O1:ospf ext 1, O2:ospf ext 2 destination protocol nexthop distance metric flag tag age interface 0.0.0.0/0 static 10.154.1.1 10 10 A 01:47:33 ethernet1/1 10.154.1.0/24 connected 0 0 A 01:47:37 ethernet1/1 10.154.1.99/32 local 0 0 A 01:47:37 ethernet1/1 10.154.4.0/24 connected 0 0 A 01:47:37 ethernet1/2 10.154.4.119/32 local 0 0 A 01:47:37 ethernet1/2 192.168.100.10/32 bgp 10.154.4.33 20 255 A E 00:01:03 ethernet1/2 192.168.100.10/32 bgp 10.154.4.160 20 255 A E 00:01:03 ethernet1/2 total route shown: 7 Implementing CE Isolation for Maintenance As discussed in Part One, one of the key advantages of BGP-based deployments is the ability to gracefully isolate CE nodes for maintenance. Here’s how to implement this in practice. Isolation via F5 Distributed Cloud Console To isolate a CE node from receiving traffic, in your BGP peer object, edit the Peer and: Change the Outbound BGP routing policy from the one that is allowing the VIP prefixes to the one that is denying the VIP prefixes The CE will stop advertising its VIP routes, and within seconds (based on BGP timers), the upstream firewall will remove this CE from its ECMP paths. Verification During Maintenance On your firewall, verify the route withdrawal (in this case we are using a Fortigate firewall): get router info bgp summary VRF 0 BGP router identifier 10.154.4.119, local AS number 65001 BGP table version is 4 1 BGP AS-PATH entries 0 BGP community entries Neighbor V AS MsgRcvd MsgSent TblVer InQ OutQ Up/Down State/PfxRcd 10.154.4.33 4 65002 2070 2345 0 0 0 00:04:05 0 10.154.4.160 4 65002 2057 2326 0 0 0 00:12:46 1 Total number of neighbors 2 We are not receiving any prefixes anymore for the 10.154.4.33 peer. get router info routing-table bgp Routing table for VRF=0 B 192.168.100.10/32 [20/255] via 10.154.4.160 (recursive is directly connected, port2), 00:06:34, [1/0] End we have now only one path. Restoring the CE in the data path After maintenance is complete: Return to the BGP Peer configuration in the F5XC Console Restore the original export policy (permit VIP prefixes) Save the configuration On the upstream firewall, confirm that CE prefixes are received again and that ECMP paths are restored Conclusion This article has provided the complete implementation details for deploying BGP and ECMP with F5 Distributed Cloud Customer Edge nodes. You now have: A clear understanding of the architecture at both high and low levels Step-by-step instructions for configuring BGP in F5 Distributed Cloud Console Ready-to-use configurations for both Fortinet FortiGate and Palo Alto Networks firewalls Practical guidance for implementing graceful CE isolation for maintenance By combining the concepts from the first article with the practical configurations in this article, you can build a robust, highly available application delivery infrastructure that maximizes resource utilization, provides automatic failover, and enables zero-downtime maintenance operations. The BGP-based approach transforms your Customer Edge deployment from a traditional Active/Standby model into a full active topology where every node contributes to handling traffic, and any node can be gracefully removed for maintenance without impacting your users.How to deploy an F5XC SMSv2 for KVM with the help of automation
Typical KVM architecture for F5XC CE The purpose of this article isn't to build a complete KVM environment, but some basic concepts should be explained. To be deployed, a CE must have an interface (which is and will always be its default interface) that has Internet access. This access is necessary to perform the installation steps and provide the "control plane" part to the CE. The name of this interface will be referred to as « Site Local Outside or SLO ». It is highly recommended (not to say required) to add at least a second interface during the site first deployment. Because depending on the infrastructure (for example, GCP) it is not possible to add network interfaces after the creation of the VM. Even on platforms where adding a network interface is possible, a reboot of the F5XC CE is needed. An F5XC SMSv2 CE can have up to eight interfaces overall. Additional interfaces are (most of the time) used as “Site Local Inside or SLI” interfaces or "Segment interfaces" (that specific part will be covered in another article). To match the requirements, one typical KVM deployment is described below. It's a way of doing things, but it's not the only way. But most likely the architecture will be composed of: a Linux host user space softwares to run KVM: qemu libvirt virt-manager Linux Network Bridge Interfaces with KVM Networks mapped to those interfaces CE interfaces attached to KVM Networks This is what the diagram below is picturing. KVM Storage and Networking We will use both components in the Terraform automation. KVM Storage It is necessary to define a storage pool for the F5XC CE virtual machine. If you already have a storage pool, you can use it. Otherwise, here is how to create one: sudo virsh pool-define-as --name f5xc-vmdisks --type dir --target /f5xc-vmdisks To create the target directory (/f5xc-vmdisks): sudo virsh pool-build f5xc-vmdisks Start the storage pool: sudo virsh pool-start f5xc-vmdisks Ensure the storage pool starts automatically on system boot: sudo virsh pool-autostart f5xc-vmdisks KVM Networking Assuming you already have bridge interfaces configured on the Linux host but no KVM Networking yet. KVM SLO networking Create an XML file (kvm-net-ext.xml) with the following: <network> <name>kvm-net-ext</name> <forward mode="bridge"/> <bridge name="br0"/> </network> Then run: virsh net-define kvm-net-ext.xml virsh net-start kvm-net-ext virsh net-autostart kvm-net-ext KVM SLI networking Create an XML file (kvm-net-int.xml) with the following: <network> <name>kvm-net-int</name> <forward mode="bridge"/> <bridge name="br1"/> </network> Then run: virsh net-define kvm-net-int.xml virsh net-start kvm-net-int virsh net-autostart kvm-net-int Terraform Getting the F5XC CE QCOW2 image Please use this link to retrieve the QCOW2 image and store it in your KVM Linux host. Terraform variables vCPU and Memory Please refer to this page for the cpu and memory requirement. Then adjust: variable "f5xc-ce-memory" { description = "Memory allocated to KVM CE" default = "32000" } variable "f5xc-ce-vcpu" { description = "Number of vCPUs allocated to KVM CE" default = "8" } Networking Based on your KVM Networking setup, please adjust: variable "f5xc-ce-network-slo" { description = "KVM Networking for SLO interface" default = "kvm-net-ext" } variable "f5xc-ce-network-sli" { description = "KVM Networking for SLI interface" default = "kvm-net-int" } Storage Based on your KVM storage pool, please adjust: variable "f5xc-ce-storage-pool" { description = "KVM CE storage pool name" default = "f5xc-vmdisks" } F5XC CE image location variable "f5xc-ce-qcow2" { description = "KVM CE QCOW2 image source" default = "<path to the F5XC CE QCOW2 image>" } Cloud-init modification It's possible to configure static IP and Gateway for the SLO interface. This is done in the cloud-init part of the Terraform code. Please specify slo_ip and slo_gateway in the Terraform code. Like below. data "cloudinit_config" "config" { gzip = false base64_encode = false part { content_type = "text/cloud-config" content = yamlencode({ write_files = [ { path = "/etc/vpm/user_data" permissions = "0644" owner = "root" content = <<-EOT token: ${replace(volterra_token.smsv2-token.id, "id=", "")} slo_ip: 10.154.1.100/24 slo_gateway: 10.154.1.254 EOT } ] }) } } If you don't need a static IP, please comment or remove those two lines. Sample Terraform code Is available here. Deployment Make all the changes necessary in the Terraform variables and in the cloud-init. Then run: terraform init terraform plan terraform apply Should everything be correct at each step, you should get a CE object in the F5XC console, under Multi-Cloud Network Connect --> Manage --> Site Management --> Secure Mesh Sites v2
