automation

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Mastering Imperative and Declarative Automation with F5 BIG-IP – AppWorld 2025
At AppWorld 2025, Anton Varkalevich and I will be hosting a hands-on lab, "Mastering Imperative and Declarative Automation with F5 BIG-IP." I'm Matt Mabis, a Senior Solutions Architect in the Business Development/Technical Alliances department at F5. I specialize in solution integrations with our partnerships with Red Hat (Ansible and OpenShift), VMware, and Omnissa Horizon. Anton Varkalevich is a Solutions Engineer III for Financial Services at F5, specializing in ensuring financial customers have the right solutions to meet their unique needs. Automation plays a critical role in financial institutions, enabling them to serve their customers quickly and effectively. This lab is the result of years of experience working with customers to streamline application deployments on F5 BIG-IP. We’ll use Ansible Automation Platform to demonstrate both imperative and declarative automation approaches. Participants will first deploy common use cases—such as HTTPS and SSL-delivered applications—using imperative automation with individual Ansible modules. Then, we’ll achieve the same outcomes using declarative automation, offering a side-by-side comparison to help attendees choose the best approach for their needs. By the end of this lab, you’ll have a solid understanding of both automation styles and how to apply them effectively in your environment. Join us at AppWorld 2025—we look forward to sharing our knowledge with you!
Matt_Mabis
Feb 20, 2025 Place Technical Articles
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Five Ways to Automate F5OS with Ansible: A Practical Guide

Tony_Marfil
Feb 05, 2025 Place Technical Articles
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Installing and Locking a Specific Version of F5 NGINX Plus
A guide for installing and locking a specific version of NGINX Plus to ensure stability, meet internal policies, and prepare for controlled upgrades. Introduction The most common way to install F5 NGINX Plus is by using the package manager tool native to your Linux host (e.g., yum, apt-get, etc.). By default, the package manager installs the latest available version of NGINX Plus. However, there may be scenarios where you need to install an earlier version. To help you modify your automation scripts, we’ve provided example commands for selecting a specific version. Common Scenarios for Installing an Earlier Version of NGINX Plus Your internal policy requires sticking to internally tested versions before deploying the latest release. You prefer to maintain consistency by using the same version across your entire fleet for simplicity. You’d like to verify and meet additional requirements introduced in a newer release (e.g., NGINX Plus Release 33) before upgrading. Commands for Installing and Holding a Specific Version of NGINX Plus Use the following commands based on your Linux distribution to install and lock a prior version of NGINX Plus: Ubuntu 20.04, 22.04, 24.04 LTS sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install -y nginx-plus=<VERSION> sudo apt-mark hold nginx-plus Debian 11, 12 sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install -y nginx-plus=<VERSION> sudo apt-mark hold nginx-plus AlmaLinux 8, 9 / Rocky Linux 8, 9 / Oracle Linux 8.1+, 9 / RHEL 8.1+, 9 sudo yum install -y nginx-plus-<VERSION> sudo yum versionlock nginx-plus Amazon Linux 2 LTS, 2023 sudo yum install -y nginx-plus-<VERSION> sudo yum versionlock nginx-plus SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12, 15 SP5+ sudo zypper install nginx-plus=<VERSION> sudo zypper addlock nginx-plus Alpine Linux 3.17, 3.18, 3.19, 3.20 apk add nginx-plus=<VERSION> echo "nginx-plus hold" | sudo tee -a /etc/apk/world FreeBSD 13, 14 pkg install nginx-plus-<VERSION> pkg lock nginx-plus Notes Replace <VERSION> with the desired version (e.g., 32-2*). After installation, verify the installed version with the command: nginx -v. Holding or locking the package ensures it won’t be inadvertently upgraded during routine updates. Conclusion Installing and locking a specific version of NGINX Plus ensures stability, compliance with internal policies, and proper validation of new features before deployment. By following the provided commands tailored to your Linux distribution, you can confidently maintain control over your infrastructure while minimizing the risk of unintended upgrades. Regularly verifying the installed version and holding updates will help ensure consistency and reliability across your environments.
Gee_Chow
Jan 13, 2025 Place Technical Articles
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BIG-IP Next – Introduction to the Blueprints API
If you have ever attempted to automate the BIG-IP configuration, you are probably familiar with F5’s AS3 extension. Although AS3 is supported in BIG-IP Next, there is another API that might be the better option if you haven’t started your migration journey up until now. This is called the Blueprints API. In this article, I want to show you how to use it to automate your applications with AS3. Overview When you use the BIG-IP Next GUI, you instantly see the benefits of having a centrally managed configuration across all your BIG-IP instances. The steps to create an application service in the GUI now have a siloed setup where you define 4 main sections separately: Application Properties Virtual Server Properties Pool Properties Deployment Properties Each one of these sections allows you to adjust areas of your application service while still having a way to manage configurations across multiple BIG-IP instances. In other words, you can define one pool under the pool properties, but still have different pool members under the deployment properties for each of your BIG-IP instances. This creates a centrally managed application service that does not require the exact same configuration in each environment. When you perform these tasks in the GUI, BIG-IP Next is generating its own API calls internally. It takes each of your configuration items outlined in the 4 sections above and defines the application service as a Blueprint. This Blueprint is then used to modify anything about the configuration/deployment moving forward. If you aren’t a fan of using a GUI and you are trying to automate, this same exact API is exposed to you as well. This means we get to use the same centrally managed configuration in our API calls. It also means that we can easily automate existing application services by simply using the API to manage them moving forward. So what does this Blueprint API look like? Below is sample JSON used to create a Blueprint called “bobs-blueprint”: { "name":"bobs-blueprint", "set_name": "Examples", "template_name": "http", "parameters": { "application_description": "", "application_name": "bobs-blueprint", "enable_Global_Resiliency": false, "pools": [ { "loadBalancingMode": "round-robin", "monitorType": [ "http" ], "poolName": "juice", "servicePort": 8080 } ], "virtuals": [ { "FastL4_TOS": 0, "FastL4_idleTimeout": 600, "FastL4_looseClose": true, "FastL4_looseInitialization": true, "FastL4_pvaAcceleration": "full", "FastL4_pvaDynamicClientPackets": 1, "FastL4_pvaDynamicServerPackets": 0, "FastL4_resetOnTimeout": true, "FastL4_tcpCloseTimeout": 43200, "FastL4_tcpHandshakeTimeout": 43200, "InspectionServicesEnum": [], "TCP_idle_timeout": 60, "UDP_idle_timeout": 60, "ciphers": "DEFAULT", "ciphers_server": "DEFAULT", "enable_Access": false, "enable_FastL4": false, "enable_FastL4_DSR": false, "enable_HTTP2_Profile": false, "enable_HTTP_Profile": false, "enable_InspectionServices": false, "enable_SsloPolicy": false, "enable_TCP_Profile": false, "enable_TLS_Client": false, "enable_TLS_Server": false, "enable_UDP_Profile": false, "enable_WAF": false, "enable_iRules": false, "enable_mirroring": true, "enable_snat": true, "iRulesEnum": [], "multiCertificatesEnum": [], "perRequestAccessPolicyEnum": "", "pool": "juice", "snat_addresses": [], "snat_automap": true, "tls_c_1_1": false, "tls_c_1_2": true, "tls_c_1_3": false, "tls_s_1_2": true, "tls_s_1_3": false, "trustCACertificate": "", "virtualName": "bobs-vs", "virtualPort": 80 } ] } } As you can see, the structure of this JSON is siloed in a very similar way to the GUI: Note: For those readers who are wondering where the Deployment section is, that is handled in a separate API call after the blueprint has been created. I’ll discuss that in more detail later. In the sections below, I’ll review a few of the API endpoints you can use with some steps on how to perform the following common tasks: Viewing an existing Blueprint Creating a new Blueprint Deploying a Blueprint Viewing an Existing Blueprint Before we start creating a new Blueprint from scratch, it is probably a good idea to explain how we can view a list of our current Blueprints. To do so, we simply make a GET request to the following API endpoint: GET https://{{bigip_next_cm_mgmt_ip}}/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints This will return a list of every Blueprint created by the GUI and/or API. Below is an example output: { "_embedded": { "appsvcs": [ { "_links": { "self": { "href": "/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints//3f2ef264-cf09-45c8-a925-f2c8fccf09f6" } }, "created": "2024-06-25T13:32:22.160399Z", "deployments": [ { "id": "1e5f9c06-8800-4ab7-ad5e-648d55b83b68", "instance_id": "ce179e66-b075-4068-bc4e-8e212954da49", "target": { "address": "10.2.1.3" }, "parameters": { "pools": [ { "isServicePool": false, "poolMembers": [ { "address": "10.1.3.100", "name": "old" }, { "address": "10.2.3.100", "name": "new" } ], "poolName": "juice" } ], "virtuals": [ { "allow_networks": [], "enable_allow_networks": false, "virtualAddress": "10.2.2.11", "virtualName": "juice-shop" } ] }, "last_successful_deploy_time": "2024-06-25T17:46:00.193649Z", "modified": "2024-06-25T17:46:00.193649Z", "last_record": { "id": "cb6a06a1-c66d-41c3-a747-9a27b101a0f1", "task_id": "6a65642d-810b-4194-9693-91a15f6d1ef0", "created_application_path": "/applications/tenantSrLEVevFQnWwXT90590F3USQ/juice-shop", "start_time": "2024-06-25T17:45:55.392732Z", "end_time": "2024-06-25T17:46:00.193649Z", "status": "completed" } }, { "id": "001e14e8-7900-482a-bdd4-aca35967a5cc", "instance_id": "0546acf5-3b88-422d-a948-28bbf0973212", "target": { "address": "10.2.1.4" }, "parameters": { "pools": [ { "isServicePool": false, "poolMembers": [ { "address": "10.1.3.100", "name": "old" }, { "address": "10.2.3.100", "name": "new" } ], "poolName": "juice" } ], "virtuals": [ { "allow_networks": [], "enable_allow_networks": false, "virtualAddress": "10.2.2.12", "virtualName": "juice-shop" } ] }, "last_successful_deploy_time": "2024-06-25T17:46:07.94836Z", "modified": "2024-06-25T17:46:07.94836Z", "last_record": { "id": "8a8a29be-e56b-4ef1-bf6a-92f7ccc9e9b7", "task_id": "0632cc18-9f0f-4a5e-875a-0d769b02e19b", "created_application_path": "/applications/tenantSrLEVevFQnWwXT90590F3USQ/juice-shop", "start_time": "2024-06-25T17:45:55.406377Z", "end_time": "2024-06-25T17:46:07.94836Z", "status": "completed" } } ], "deployments_count": { "total": 2, "completed": 2 }, "description": "", "fqdn": "", "gslb_enabled": false, "id": "3f2ef264-cf09-45c8-a925-f2c8fccf09f6", "modified": "2024-06-25T17:32:09.174243Z", "name": "juice-shop", "set_name": "Examples", "successful_instances": 2, "template_name": "http", "tenant_name": "tenantSrLEVevFQnWwXT90590F3USQ", "type": "FAST" } ] }, "_links": { "self": { "href": "/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints/" } }, "count": 1, "total": 1 } In the example above, I only have one Blueprint in my BIG-IP Next CM instance. If we look deeper into the output, we can start to see some detail around the configuration parameters as well as the deployment parameters for each BIG-IP. There is also an ID field in the JSON that we can use to reference a specific Blueprint. In the example above, we have: "id": "3f2ef264-cf09-45c8-a925-f2c8fccf09f6" This is important because as we start to modify, deploy, or delete our existing blueprints, we will need this ID to be able to make changes. We can also use this ID to view more detail on a specific Blueprint rather than an entire list of all Blueprints. To do so, we simply follow make a request to the endpoint below: GET https://{{bigip_next_cm_mgmt_ip}}/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints/{{Blueprint_id}} In our example, this would be: GET https://{{bigip_next_cm_mgmt_ip}}/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints/3f2ef264-cf09-45c8-a925-f2c8fccf09f6 The output from this API call provides robust detail on the Blueprint. It is probably too much detail to paste in an article like this, but there are some examples here if interested: https://clouddocs.f5.com/products/bigip-next/mgmt-api/latest/ApiReferences/bigip_public_api_ref/r_openapi-next.html#tag/Application-Services/operation/GetApplicationByID Viewing a Blueprint like this can provide us with the latest configuration of our application service so that we can ensure we are using the most up-to-date files. It also can provide us with some templates/example configurations that we can use to create new application services moving forward. Creating a new Blueprint Now that we have a pretty good understanding of the JSON structure and we know how to view some examples of Blueprints that have already been created, we can simply use them as a reference and create our own Blueprint from scratch. The basic format for creating a new Blueprint is below: { "name": <blueprint_name>, "set_name": <template_set> "template_name": <template_name>, "parameters": { "application_description": <simple_description>, "application_name": <blueprint_name>, "enable_Global_Resiliency": false, "pools": [ { <pool_configuration_parameters> } ], "virtuals": [ { <virtual_server_configuration parameters> } ] } } More detail on each of the variable values below: <blueprint_name> - This is the name you choose for your blueprint. I generally recommend this name be the same in both the “name” field and the “application_name” field which is why in the JSON above you’ll see this in both. <template_set> - This is going to be the template set containing your FAST template. If you are using the default templates provided to you, this value would be “Examples” <template_name> - This is the specific FAST template you are going to use for the configuration. If you are using the default template provided to you, this value would be “http” <simple_description> - This can be any short description you would like to use for your application service. <pool_configuration_parameters> - This will be the list of parameters that you are going to define for your pool. You do not have to fill in every single value if the FAST template contains values for that field. <virtual_server_configuration parameters> - This will be the list of parameters that you are going to define for your virtual server. You do not have to fill in every single value if the FAST template contains values for that field. Important Note: When creating your JSON, you will be defining a FAST template to use along with your application service (just like you would in the GUI). This means that you do not have to fill out every value under your pool and virtual server configuration. It will take in the values provided from your FAST template. With our guide above, we can now make a new Blueprint for the “bobs-blueprint” example I referenced earlier: { "name":"bobs-blueprint", "set_name": "Examples", "template_name": "http", "parameters": { "application_description":"This is a test of the blueprints api", "application_name": "bobs-blueprint", "pools": [ { "loadBalancingMode": "round-robin", "monitorType": [ "http" ], "poolName": "juice_pool", "servicePort": 3000 } ], "virtuals": [ { "pool": "juice_pool", "virtualName": "blueprint_vs", "virtualPort": 80 } ] } } As you can see, this is a much more condensed version of the original JSON I had for the example shown in the beginning of this article. Again, this is because we are referencing the FAST template “Examples/http” and taking in those values to configure the rest of the application service. With our newly created JSON, the last step to creating this Blueprint is to send this in a POST request to the following API endpoint: POST https://{{bigip_next_cm_mgmt_ip}}/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints After sending our POST, you'll notice we are given the "id" of the Blueprint in the response. As mentioned above, we can use this ID to modify, deploy, etc. { "_links": { "self": { "href": "/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints/9c35a614-65ac-4d18-8082-589ea9bc78d9/deployments" } }, "deployments": [ { "deploymentID": "1a153f44-acaf-4487-81c7-61b8b5498627", "instanceID": "4ef739d1-9ef1-4eb7-a5bb-36c6d1334b16", "status": "pending", "taskID": "518534c8-9368-48dd-b399-94f55e72d5a7", "task_type": "CREATE" }, { "deploymentID": "82ca8d6d-dbfd-43a8-a604-43f170d9f190", "instanceID": "0546acf5-3b88-422d-a948-28bbf0973212", "status": "pending", "taskID": "7ea24157-1412-4963-9560-56fb0ab78d8c", "task_type": "CREATE" } ], "id": "9c35a614-65ac-4d18-8082-589ea9bc78d9" } Now that the Blueprint has been created, we can go into our BIG-IP Next CM GUI and see our newly created application service: You’ll notice that our newly created application service is in Draft mode. This is because we have not deployed the service yet. We’ll discuss that in the next section. Deploying a Blueprint Once we have our Blueprint created, the final step is to configure the deployment. As discussed above, this is done through a separate API Call. The format for a deployment is as follows: { "deployments": [ { "parameters": { "pools": [ { "poolName": <pool_name> "poolMembers": [ { "name": <node1_name>, "address": <node1_ip_address> }, { "name": <node2_name>, "address": <node2_ip_address> } ] } ], "virtuals": [ { "virtualName": <virtual_server_name>, "virtualAddress": <virtual_server_ip_address> } ] }, "target": { "address": <bigip_instance_ip_address> }, "allow_overwrite": true } ] } Keep in mind that some of these values above are referencing names from your Blueprint configuration. These names need to be exactly the same. See below for more detail on each of these values: <pool_name> - This references the pool from your Blueprint. This value must match what was used for “poolName” in the pool configuration of the Blueprint. <node1_name> - This is any name you choose to describe your node in the pool <node1_ip_address> - This is the specific IP address for your node <node2_name> - If you are using more than one node, this would be the name you choose to represent your second node in the pool. This format can repeat for 3 nodes, 4 nodes, etc. <node2_ip_address> - If you are using more than one node, this would be the IP address of your second node. This format can repeat for 3 nodes, 4 nodes, etc. <virtual_server_name> - This references the virtual server from your Blueprint. This value must match what was used for “virtualName” in the virtuals configuration of the Blueprint. <virtual_server_ip_address> - This would be the IP address of the Virtual Server being deployed on the BIG-IP <bigip_instance_ip_address> - This is the IP address of the BIG-IP instance we are deploying to Important Note: If you are deploying the same application to more than one BIG-IP instance, you can include multiple deployment blocks in your API call. Using the format above, we can now create our deployment for “bobs-blueprint”: { "deployments": [ { "parameters": { "pools": [ { "poolName": "juice_pool", "poolMembers": [ { "name": "node1", "address": "10.1.3.100" } ] } ], "virtuals": [ { "virtualName": "blueprint_vs", "virtualAddress": "10.2.2.15" } ] }, "target": { "address": "10.2.1.3" }, "allow_overwrite": true }, { "parameters": { "pools": [ { "poolName": "juice_pool", "poolMembers": [ { "name": "node1", "address": "10.2.3.100" } ] } ], "virtuals": [ { "virtualName": "blueprint_vs", "virtualAddress": "10.2.2.20" } ] }, "target": { "address": "10.2.1.4" }, "allow_overwrite": true } ] } In this example deployment, I am deploying to two separate BIG-IP instances (10.2.1.3 and 10.2.1.4). This is where we can really start to see the value of the Blueprints API. With this structure, I can use the same pool and virtual server setup from our Blueprint, while still using different Virtual Server and Node IP addresses for the deployment at each instance. All of this is done with one API call. The final step is to send this in a POST request to our deployments endpoint. The endpoint is very similar to viewing a blueprint as it uses our same Blueprint ID. See the format below: POST https://{{bigip_next_cm_mgmt_ip}}/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints/{{Blueprint_id}}/deployments Using the ID from the response we received after creating our example blueprint, our endpoint would be: POST https://{{bigip_next_cm_mgmt_ip}}/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints/9c35a614-65ac-4d18-8082-589ea9bc78d9/deployments After sending our POST, we can go back to the BIG-IP Next CM GUI and see our application service is no longer considered a Draft. If we click into the application service, we’ll see our two deployments are up and healthy: Conclusion Hopefully after reading this article, you can see the value of using the Blueprints API for your automation. I think as an alternative to other automation methods, this can provide benefits such as: Same centrally managed format/structure as GUI created applications Since the BIG-IP Next CM GUI is already creating these JSON files under the hood, we can easily automate existing applications by using the Blueprints API for them moving forward Deployments are handled separately from your application configuration You can deploy your application service to multiple BIG-IP instances at once Combining the Blueprints API with FAST templates allows you make application on-boarding much more streamlined. If you liked this article and are looking for more information our our Blueprints API, please visit the API documentation here: https://clouddocs.f5.com/products/bigip-next/mgmt-api/latest/ApiReferences/bigip_public_api_ref/r_openapi-next.html#tag/Application-Services/operation/GetAllApplications
Bob_Hanson
Oct 08, 2024 Place Technical Articles
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What is an iApp?
iApp is a seriously cool, game changing technology that was released in F5’s v11. There are so many benefits to our customers with this tool that I am going to break it down over a series of posts. Today we will focus on what it is. Hopefully you are already familiar with the power of F5’s iRules technology. If not, here is a quick background. F5 products support a scripting language based on TCL. This language allows an administrator to tell their BIG-IP to intercept, inspect, transform, direct and track inbound or outbound application traffic. An iRule is the bit of code that contains the set of instructions the system uses to process data flowing through it, either in the header or payload of a packet. This technology allows our customers to solve real-time application issues, security vulnerabilities, etc that are unique to their environment or are time sensitive. An iApp is like iRules, but for the management plane. Again, there is a scripting language that administrators can build instructions the system will use. But instead of describing how to process traffic, in the case of iApp, it is used to describe the user interface and how the system will act on information gathered from the user. The bit of code that contains these instructions is referred to as an iApp or iApp template. A system administrator can use F5-provided iApp templates installed on their BIG-IP to configure a service for a new application. They will be presented with the text and input fields defined by the iApp author. Once complete, their answers are submitted, and the template implements the configuration. First an application service object (ASO) is created that ties together all the configuration objects which are created, like virtual servers and profiles. Each object created by the iApp is then marked with the ASO to identify their membership in the application for future management and reporting. That about does it for what an iApp is…..next up, how they can work for you.
Karen_Jester_42
Sep 26, 2024 Place Technical Articles
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VIPTest: 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.
Tony_Marfil
Sep 11, 2024 Place Technical Articles
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NGINX Virtual Machine Building with cloud-init
Traditionally, building new servers was a manual process. A system administrator had a run book with all the steps required and would perform each task one by one. If the admin had multiple servers to build the same steps were repeated over and over. All public cloud compute platforms provide an automation tool called cloud-init that makes it easy to automate configuration tasks while a new VM instance is being launched. In this article, you will learn how to automate the process of building out a new NGINX Plus server using cloud-init.
Doug_Gallarda
Aug 28, 2024 Place Technical Articles
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Controlling a Pool Members Ratio and Priority Group with iControl
A Little Background A question came in through the iControl forums about controlling a pool members ratio and priority programmatically. The issue really involves how the API’s use multi-dimensional arrays but I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk about ratio and priority groups for those that don’t understand how they work. In the first part of this article, I’ll talk a little about what pool members are and how their ratio and priorities apply to how traffic is assigned to them in a load balancing setup. The details in this article were based on BIG-IP version 11.1, but the concepts can apply to other previous versions as well. Load Balancing In it’s very basic form, a load balancing setup involves a virtual ip address (referred to as a VIP) that virtualized a set of backend servers. The idea is that if your application gets very popular, you don’t want to have to rely on a single server to handle the traffic. A VIP contains an object called a “pool” which is essentially a collection of servers that it can distribute traffic to. The method of distributing traffic is referred to as a “Load Balancing Method”. You may have heard the term “Round Robin” before. In this method, connections are passed one at a time from server to server. In most cases though, this is not the best method due to characteristics of the application you are serving. Here are a list of the available load balancing methods in BIG-IP version 11.1. Load Balancing Methods in BIG-IP version 11.1 Round Robin: Specifies that the system passes each new connection request to the next server in line, eventually distributing connections evenly across the array of machines being load balanced. This method works well in most configurations, especially if the equipment that you are load balancing is roughly equal in processing speed and memory. Ratio (member): Specifies that the number of connections that each machine receives over time is proportionate to a ratio weight you define for each machine within the pool. Least Connections (member): Specifies that the system passes a new connection to the node that has the least number of current connections in the pool. This method works best in environments where the servers or other equipment you are load balancing have similar capabilities. This is a dynamic load balancing method, distributing connections based on various aspects of real-time server performance analysis, such as the current number of connections per node or the fastest node response time. Observed (member): Specifies that the system ranks nodes based on the number of connections. Nodes that have a better balance of fewest connections receive a greater proportion of the connections. This method differs from Least Connections (member), in that the Least Connections method measures connections only at the moment of load balancing, while the Observed method tracks the number of Layer 4 connections to each node over time and creates a ratio for load balancing. This dynamic load balancing method works well in any environment, but may be particularly useful in environments where node performance varies significantly. Predictive (member): Uses the ranking method used by the Observed (member) methods, except that the system analyzes the trend of the ranking over time, determining whether a node's performance is improving or declining. The nodes in the pool with better performance rankings that are currently improving, rather than declining, receive a higher proportion of the connections. This dynamic load balancing method works well in any environment. Ratio (node): Specifies that the number of connections that each machine receives over time is proportionate to a ratio weight you define for each machine across all pools of which the server is a member. Least Connections (node): Specifies that the system passes a new connection to the node that has the least number of current connections out of all pools of which a node is a member. This method works best in environments where the servers or other equipment you are load balancing have similar capabilities. This is a dynamic load balancing method, distributing connections based on various aspects of real-time server performance analysis, such as the number of current connections per node, or the fastest node response time. Fastest (node): Specifies that the system passes a new connection based on the fastest response of all pools of which a server is a member. This method might be particularly useful in environments where nodes are distributed across different logical networks. Observed (node): Specifies that the system ranks nodes based on the number of connections. Nodes that have a better balance of fewest connections receive a greater proportion of the connections. This method differs from Least Connections (node), in that the Least Connections method measures connections only at the moment of load balancing, while the Observed method tracks the number of Layer 4 connections to each node over time and creates a ratio for load balancing. This dynamic load balancing method works well in any environment, but may be particularly useful in environments where node performance varies significantly. Predictive (node): Uses the ranking method used by the Observed (member) methods, except that the system analyzes the trend of the ranking over time, determining whether a node's performance is improving or declining. The nodes in the pool with better performance rankings that are currently improving, rather than declining, receive a higher proportion of the connections. This dynamic load balancing method works well in any environment. Dynamic Ratio (node) : This method is similar to Ratio (node) mode, except that weights are based on continuous monitoring of the servers and are therefore continually changing. This is a dynamic load balancing method, distributing connections based on various aspects of real-time server performance analysis, such as the number of current connections per node or the fastest node response time. Fastest (application): Passes a new connection based on the fastest response of all currently active nodes in a pool. This method might be particularly useful in environments where nodes are distributed across different logical networks. Least Sessions: Specifies that the system passes a new connection to the node that has the least number of current sessions. This method works best in environments where the servers or other equipment you are load balancing have similar capabilities. This is a dynamic load balancing method, distributing connections based on various aspects of real-time server performance analysis, such as the number of current sessions. Dynamic Ratio (member): This method is similar to Ratio (node) mode, except that weights are based on continuous monitoring of the servers and are therefore continually changing. This is a dynamic load balancing method, distributing connections based on various aspects of real-time server performance analysis, such as the number of current connections per node or the fastest node response time. L3 Address: This method functions in the same way as the Least Connections methods. We are deprecating it, so you should not use it. Weighted Least Connections (member): Specifies that the system uses the value you specify in Connection Limit to establish a proportional algorithm for each pool member. The system bases the load balancing decision on that proportion and the number of current connections to that pool member. For example,member_a has 20 connections and its connection limit is 100, so it is at 20% of capacity. Similarly, member_b has 20 connections and its connection limit is 200, so it is at 10% of capacity. In this case, the system select selects member_b. This algorithm requires all pool members to have a non-zero connection limit specified. Weighted Least Connections (node): Specifies that the system uses the value you specify in the node's Connection Limitand the number of current connections to a node to establish a proportional algorithm. This algorithm requires all nodes used by pool members to have a non-zero connection limit specified. Ratios The ratio is used by the ratio-related load balancing methods to load balance connections. The ratio specifies the ratio weight to assign to the pool member. Valid values range from 1 through 100. The default is 1, which means that each pool member has an equal ratio proportion. So, if you have server1 a with a ratio value of “10” and server2 with a ratio value of “1”, server1 will get served 10 connections for every one that server2 receives. This can be useful when you have different classes of servers with different performance capabilities. Priority Group The priority group is a number that groups pool members together. The default is 0, meaning that the member has no priority. To specify a priority, you must activate priority group usage when you create a new pool or when adding or removing pool members. When activated, the system load balances traffic according to the priority group number assigned to the pool member. The higher the number, the higher the priority, so a member with a priority of 3 has higher priority than a member with a priority of 1. The easiest way to think of priority groups is as if you are creating mini-pools of servers within a single pool. You put members A, B, and C in to priority group 5 and members D, E, and F in priority group 1. Members A, B, and C will be served traffic according to their ratios (assuming you have ratio loadbalancing configured). If all those servers have reached their thresholds, then traffic will be distributed to servers D, E, and F in priority group 1. he default setting for priority group activation is Disabled. Once you enable this setting, you can specify pool member priority when you create a new pool or on a pool member's properties screen. The system treats same-priority pool members as a group. To enable priority group activation in the admin GUI, select Less than from the list, and in the Available Member(s) box, type a number from 0 to 65535 that represents the minimum number of members that must be available in one priority group before the system directs traffic to members in a lower priority group. When a sufficient number of members become available in the higher priority group, the system again directs traffic to the higher priority group. Implementing in Code The two methods to retrieve the priority and ratio values are very similar. They both take two parameters: a list of pools to query, and a 2-D array of members (a list for each pool member passed in). long [] [] get_member_priority( in String [] pool_names, in Common__AddressPort [] [] members ); long [] [] get_member_ratio( in String [] pool_names, in Common__AddressPort [] [] members ); The following PowerShell function (utilizing the iControl PowerShell Library), takes as input a pool and a single member. It then make a call to query the ratio and priority for the specific member and writes it to the console. function Get-PoolMemberDetails() { param( $Pool = $null, $Member = $null ); $AddrPort = Parse-AddressPort $Member; $RatioAofA = (Get-F5.iControl).LocalLBPool.get_member_ratio( @($Pool), @( @($AddrPort) ) ); $PriorityAofA = (Get-F5.iControl).LocalLBPool.get_member_priority( @($Pool), @( @($AddrPort) ) ); $ratio = $RatioAofA[0][0]; $priority = $PriorityAofA[0][0]; "Pool '$Pool' member '$Member' ratio '$ratio' priority '$priority'"; } Setting the values with the set_member_priority and set_member_ratio methods take the same first two parameters as their associated get_* methods, but add a third parameter for the priorities and ratios for the pool members. set_member_priority( in String [] pool_names, in Common::AddressPort [] [] members, in long [] [] priorities ); set_member_ratio( in String [] pool_names, in Common::AddressPort [] [] members, in long [] [] ratios ); The following Powershell function takes as input the Pool and Member with optional values for the Ratio and Priority. If either of those are set, the function will call the appropriate iControl methods to set their values. function Set-PoolMemberDetails() { param( $Pool = $null, $Member = $null, $Ratio = $null, $Priority = $null ); $AddrPort = Parse-AddressPort $Member; if ( $null -ne $Ratio ) { (Get-F5.iControl).LocalLBPool.set_member_ratio( @($Pool), @( @($AddrPort) ), @($Ratio) ); } if ( $null -ne $Priority ) { (Get-F5.iControl).LocalLBPool.set_member_priority( @($Pool), @( @($AddrPort) ), @($Priority) ); } } In case you were wondering how to create the Common::AddressPort structure for the $AddrPort variables in the above examples, here’s a helper function I wrote to allocate the object and fill in it’s properties. function Parse-AddressPort() { param($Value); $tokens = $Value.Split(":"); $r = New-Object iControl.CommonAddressPort; $r.address = $tokens[0]; $r.port = $tokens[1]; $r; } Download The Source The full source for this example can be found in the iControl CodeShare under PowerShell PoolMember Ratio and Priority.
Joe_Pruitt
Mar 27, 2024 Place Technical Articles
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Devops Proverb: Process Practice Makes Perfect
#devops Tools for automating – and optimizing – processes are a must-have for enabling continuous delivery of application deployments Some idioms are cross-cultural and cross-temporal. They transcend cultures and time, remaining relevant no matter where or when they are spoken. These idioms are often referred to as proverbs, which carries with it a sense of enduring wisdom. One such idiom, “practice makes perfect”, can be found in just about every culture in some form. In Chinese, for example, the idiom is apparently properly read as “familiarity through doing creates high proficiency”, i.e. practice makes perfect. This is a central tenet of devops, particularly where optimization of operational processes is concerned. The more often you execute a process, the more likely you are to get better at it and discover what activities (steps) within that process may need tweaking or changes or improvements. Ergo, optimization. This tenet grows out of the agile methodology adopted by devops: application release cycles should be nearly continuous, with both developers and operations iterating over the same process – develop, test, deploy – with a high level of frequency. Eventually (one hopes) we achieve process perfection – or at least what we might call process perfection: repeatable, consistent deployment success. It is implied that in order to achieve this many processes will be automated, once we have discovered and defined them in such a way as to enable them to be automated. But how does one automate a process such as an application release cycle? Business Process Management (BPM) works well for automating business workflows; such systems include adapters and plug-ins that allow communication between systems as well as people. But these systems are not designed for operations; there are no web servers or databases or Load balancer adapters for even the most widely adopted BPM systems. One such solution can be found in Electric Cloud with its recently announced ElectricDeploy. Process Automation for Operations ElectricDeploy is built upon a more well known product from Electric Cloud (well, more well-known in developer circles, at least) known as ElectricCommander, a build-test-deploy application deployment system. Its interface presents applications in terms of tiers – but extends beyond the traditional three-tiers associated with development to include infrastructure services such as – you guessed it – load balancers (yes, including BIG-IP) and virtual infrastructure. The view enables operators to create the tiers appropriate to applications and then orchestrate deployment processes through fairly predictable phases – test, QA, pre-production and production. What’s hawesome about the tools is the ability to control the process – to rollback, to restore, and even debug. The debugging capabilities enable operators to stop at specified tasks in order to examine output from systems, check log files, etc..to ensure the process is executing properly. While it’s not able to perform “step into” debugging (stepping into the configuration of the load balancer, for example, and manually executing line by line changes) it can perform what developers know as “step over” debugging, which means you can step through a process at the highest layer and pause at break points, but you can’t yet dive into the actual task. Still, the ability to pause an executing process and examine output, as well as rollback or restore specific process versions (yes, it versions the processes as well, just as you’d expect) would certainly be a boon to operations in the quest to adopt tools and methodologies from development that can aid them in improving time and consistency of deployments. The tool also enables operations to determine what is failure during a deployment. For example, you may want to stop and rollback the deployment when a server fails to launch if your deployment only comprises 2 or 3 servers, but when it comprises 1000s it may be acceptable that a few fail to launch. Success and failure of individual tasks as well as the overall process are defined by the organization and allow for flexibility. This is more than just automation, it’s managed automation; it’s agile in action; it’s focusing on the processes, not the plumbing. MANUAL still RULES Electric Cloud recently (June 2012) conducted a survey on the “state of application deployments today” and found some not unexpected but still frustrating results including that 75% of application deployments are still performed manually or with little to no automation. While automation may not be the goal of devops, but it is a tool enabling operations to achieve its goals and thus it should be more broadly considered as standard operating procedure to automate as much of the deployment process as possible. This is particularly true when operations fully adopts not only the premise of devops but the conclusion resulting from its agile roots. Tighter, faster, more frequent release cycles necessarily puts an additional burden on operations to execute the same processes over and over again. Trying to manually accomplish this may be setting operations up for failure and leave operations focused more on simply going through the motions and getting the application into production successfully than on streamlining and optimizing the processes they are executing. Electric Cloud’s ElectricDeploy is one of the ways in which process optimization can be achieved, and justifies its purchase by operations by promising to enable better control over application deployment processes across development and infrastructure. Devops is a Verb 1024 Words: The Devops Butterfly Effect Devops is Not All About Automation Application Security is a Stack Capacity in the Cloud: Concurrency versus Connections Ecosystems are Always in Flux The Pythagorean Theorem of Operational Risk
Lori_MacVittie
Jun 03, 2023 Place Technical Articles
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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)
Janibasha
Apr 27, 2023 Place Technical Articles
1.3KViews
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Imperative and Declarative Automation with F5 BIG-IP – AppWorld 2025","conversation":{"__ref":"Conversation:conversation:339856"},"id":"message:339856","revisionNum":2,"uid":339856,"depth":0,"board":{"__ref":"Tkb:board:TechnicalArticles"},"author":{"__ref":"User:user:195328"},"teaser@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":"","introduction":"","metrics":{"__typename":"MessageMetrics","views":231},"postTime":"2025-02-20T14:45:08.231-08:00","lastPublishTime":"2025-02-20T14:45:08.231-08:00","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":" At AppWorld 2025, Anton Varkalevich and I will be hosting a hands-on lab, \"Mastering Imperative and Declarative Automation with F5 BIG-IP.\" \n I'm Matt Mabis, a Senior Solutions Architect in the Business Development/Technical Alliances department at F5. I specialize in solution integrations with our partnerships with Red Hat (Ansible and OpenShift), VMware, and Omnissa Horizon. \n Anton Varkalevich is a Solutions Engineer III for Financial Services at F5, specializing in ensuring financial customers have the right solutions to meet their unique needs. Automation plays a critical role in financial institutions, enabling them to serve their customers quickly and effectively. \n This lab is the result of years of experience working with customers to streamline application deployments on F5 BIG-IP. We’ll use Ansible Automation Platform to demonstrate both imperative and declarative automation approaches. \n \n Participants will first deploy common use cases—such as HTTPS and SSL-delivered applications—using imperative automation with individual Ansible modules. Then, we’ll achieve the same outcomes using declarative automation, offering a side-by-side comparison to help attendees choose the best approach for their needs. \n By the end of this lab, you’ll have a solid understanding of both automation styles and how to apply them effectively in your environment. \n Join us at AppWorld 2025—we look forward to sharing our knowledge with you! ","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})@stringLength":"1464","kudosSumWeight":0,"repliesCount":0,"readOnly":false,"images":{"__typename":"AssociatedImageConnection","edges":[{"__typename":"AssociatedImageEdge","cursor":"MjUuM3wyLjF8b3wyNXxfTlZffDE","node":{"__ref":"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMzk4NTYtRWV6YkJZ?revision=2\"}"}}],"totalCount":1,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}},"videos":{"__typename":"VideoConnection","edges":[],"totalCount":0,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}}},"Conversation:conversation:339397":{"__typename":"Conversation","id":"conversation:339397","topic":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","uid":339397},"lastPostingActivityTime":"2025-02-05T10:56:57.505-08:00","solved":false},"User:user:275883":{"__typename":"User","uid":275883,"login":"Tony_Marfil","registrationData":{"__typename":"RegistrationData","status":null},"deleted":false,"avatar":{"__typename":"UserAvatar","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/dS0yNzU4ODMtQ2o3aUZ6?image-coordinates=0%2C0%2C3022%2C3022"},"id":"user:275883"},"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMzkzOTctT0t4a2hK?revision=8\"}":{"__typename":"AssociatedImage","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMzkzOTctT0t4a2hK?revision=8","title":"Terminal Demo.jpg","associationType":"TEASER","width":692,"height":610,"altText":""},"TkbTopicMessage:message:339397":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","subject":"Five Ways to Automate F5OS with Ansible: A Practical Guide","conversation":{"__ref":"Conversation:conversation:339397"},"id":"message:339397","revisionNum":8,"uid":339397,"depth":0,"board":{"__ref":"Tkb:board:TechnicalArticles"},"author":{"__ref":"User:user:275883"},"teaser@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":" \n ","introduction":"","metrics":{"__typename":"MessageMetrics","views":703},"postTime":"2025-02-04T05:00:00.038-08:00","lastPublishTime":"2025-02-05T10:56:57.505-08:00","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":" This article explores five methods for automating F5OS using Ansible, complete with real-world examples you can adapt to your own environment. The five methods, with working code examples, include F5OS collection modules, REST API calls, Linux shell access, F5OS CLI commands, and Bash scripts. \n Understanding F5OS Architecture \n Our example system is an F5OS appliance named r5900-2 . \n When you connect to an F5OS device terminal as the root user, you enter a Linux Bash shell: \n [root@appliance-1(r5900-2):Active] ~ # uname -r\n3.10.0-1160.71.1.F5.1.1.1.el7_8.x86_64\n[root@appliance-1(r5900-2):Active] ~ # cat /etc/centos-release \nCentOS Linux release 7.8.2003 (Core)\n[root@appliance-1(r5900-2):Active] ~ #\n \n Root access is rarely needed to manage an F5OS appliance. Most tasks can be accomplished via the F5OS CLI. \n If you 'substitute user' to the 'admin' user (via the su command) or SSH directly as admin@r5900-2, you enter the F5OS CLI. Here you configure low-level network components such as Link Aggregation Groups and VLANs, monitor the F5OS platform, and manage BIG-IP tenants. \n [root@appliance-1(r5900-2):Active] ~ # su admin\nWelcome to the Management CLI\nadmin connected from 172.18.7.92 using ssh on r5900-2 \nr5900-2# show system version\nsystem version os-version 1.8.0-16036\nsystem version service-version 1.8.0-16036 \nsystem version product F5OS-A\n \n The F5OS CLI is built on top of the F5OS API. With this same admin account, you can target the F5OS API to configure anything at the F5OS layer. A simple test with curl can confirm you are ready to automate via the F5OS API: \n $ curl -k -X GET \\\nf/data/openconfi> \"https://r5900-2:8888/restconf/data/openconfig-system:system/f5-system-version:version\" \\\nH \"Content-Type:> -H \"Content-Type: application/yang-data+json\" \\\n> -H \"Accept: application/yang-data+json\" \\\n> -u admin:'YOUR_PASSWORD'\n{\n \"f5-system-version:version\": {\n \"os-version\": \"1.8.0-16036\",\n \"service-version\": \"1.8.0-16036\",\n \"product\": \"F5OS-A\"\n }\n}\n \n When you create a BIG-IP tenant, it behaves like a traditional BIG-IP instance. The tenant has its own isolated management IP address and iControl REST API endpoint. Your existing BIG-IP Ansible playbooks will continue to work with minimal changes. \n However, automation workflows for BIG-IP are not compatible with F5OS. Let's explore how we can automate just about anything on F5OS using Ansible. \n \n Method 1: F5OS Ansible Collection Modules \n # Method 1: Using F5OS collection module\n- name: Get F5OS system information using F5OS Ansible module\n f5os_device_info:\n gather_subset:\n - system-info\n register: f5os_facts\n \n Mechanics: This method uses the official F5OS Ansible collection to communicate with the F5OS REST API over HTTPS. The modules handle authentication, request formatting, and response parsing. \n Pros: \n \n Purpose-built for F5OS operations \n Input validation and error handling \n Consistent interface across F5OS versions \n Simplified syntax for complex operations \n \n Cons: \n \n Limited to functionality provided by existing modules \n May need to wait for new modules as F5OS features evolve \n \n \n Method 2: Direct REST API Calls \n # Method 2: Using generic Ansible uri module for REST API\n- name: Get F5OS version information using REST API direct call\n uri:\n url: \"{{ api_base_url }}/data/openconfig-system:system/f5-system-version:version\"\n method: GET\n force_basic_auth: true \n user: \"{{ ansible_user }}\"\n password: \"{{ ansible_httpapi_password }}\"\n headers:\n Content-Type: \"application/yang-data+json\"\n Accept: \"application/yang-data+json\" \n validate_certs: \"{{ ansible_httpapi_validate_certs }}\"\n status_code: 200\n return_content: true\n register: f5os_version\n \n Mechanics: This approach uses Ansible's uri module to make direct REST API calls to F5OS. It provides maximum flexibility but requires detailed knowledge of the F5OS API. \n Pros: \n \n Access to all F5OS API endpoints \n No dependency on F5OS collection modules \n Useful for testing new F5OS features \n \n Cons: \n \n Requires understanding of F5OS API structure \n More verbose configuration \n Need to handle response parsing manually \n \n \n Method 3: Linux System Access \n # Method 3: Using generic Ansible SSH for Linux system access \n- name: Gather Linux system information via SSH\n setup:\n gather_subset:\n - hardware \n delegate_to: r5900-2-linux\n vars:\n ansible_user: root\n ansible_connection: ssh\n register: linux_facts\n \n Mechanics: This method establishes an SSH connection to access the underlying Linux operating system for system-level operations and diagnostics. \n Pros: \n \n Direct access to system resources \n Useful for troubleshooting \n Leverage existing Linux automation skills \n \n Cons: \n \n Requires root access \n Risk of affecting system stability \n \n \n Method 4: F5OS CLI via SSH \n # Method 4: Using generic Ansible shell module for F5OS CLI\n- name: Get F5OS version information via CLI \n shell: |\n sshpass -p \"{{ f5os_cli_password }}\" ssh -t -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no admin@{{ hostvars['r5900-2-cli']['ansible_host'] }} << 'EOF'\n show sys version\n EOF\n delegate_to: localhost\n register: cli_version\n \n Mechanics: This method uses SSH to connect directly to the F5OS CLI, similar to how you interact with the device manually. \n Pros: \n \n Familiar CLI interface \n Suitable for operational commands \n Easy to test and debug \n \n Cons: \n \n Output parsing can be complex \n Less idempotent than API methods \n Requires sshpass installation \n \n \n Method 5: Bash Scripts with f5sh \n # Method 5: Using Ansible copy and shell modules to run f5sh commands from Bash scripts\n- name: Transfer f5sh_example.sh script to F5OS device\n copy:\n content: |\n #!/bin/bash\n f5sh show sys version\n dest: \"/root/f5sh_example.sh\"\n mode: '0755'\n delegate_to: r5900-2-linux\n vars:\n ansible_user: root\n ansible_connection: ssh\n register: script_transfer\n\n- name: Execute f5sh_example.sh script on F5OS device\n shell: \"/root/f5sh_example.sh\"\n delegate_to: r5900-2-linux\n vars:\n ansible_user: root\n ansible_connection: ssh\n register: script_output \n \n Mechanics: This method combines Linux shell access with the f5sh command prefix introduced in F5OS 1.8.0, allowing F5OS CLI commands to be run from Bash scripts. \n Pros: \n \n Combine shell scripting with F5OS commands \n \n Cons: \n \n Requires root access \n \n \n Inventory and Connection Methods \n Each connection method requires specific inventory settings defined in 'hosts.yml': \n API Connections \n # hosts.yml \nf5os:\n hosts:\n r5900-2-api:\n ansible_host: r5900-2\n \n Used with httpapi connection in the playbook: \n # playbook.yml\n- name: F5OS Management Tasks\n connection: httpapi\n hosts: r5900-2-api\n vars:\n ansible_user: \"admin\" \n ansible_httpapi_password: \"{{ f5os_api_password }}\"\n ansible_network_os: \"f5networks.f5os.f5os\"\n ansible_httpapi_use_ssl: true\n ansible_httpapi_port: 8888\n \n You may send API calls to either port 8888 or port 443. The URI path will change slightly depending on which TCP port you choose to use: \n \n For port 443: Initial path will be /api \n For port 8888: Initial path will be /restconf \n \n F5OS also listens on port 80 and will redirect to TCP port 443. You can then configure distinct network access control policies for traffic to: \n \n Management interface user interface (443) \n Management interface REST API endpoint (8888) \n \n CLI Access \n # hosts.yml\nf5os_cli: \n hosts:\n r5900-2-cli:\n ansible_host: r5900-2\n ansible_user: admin\n ansible_connection: ssh\n ansible_become: no \n ansible_ssh_common_args: '-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no'\n \n Enables CLI commands through SSH: \n # playbook.yml \n- name: Get F5OS version information via CLI\n shell: |\n sshpass -p \"{{ f5os_cli_password }}\" ssh -t -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no admin@{{ hostvars['r5900-2-cli']['ansible_host'] }} << 'EOF' \n show sys version\n EOF\n delegate_to: localhost\n \n Linux Shell Access \n # hosts.yml\nlinux_hosts:\n hosts: \n r5900-2-linux:\n ansible_host: r5900-2\n ansible_user: root\n ansible_connection: ssh\n ansible_become: no\n ansible_python_interpreter: /usr/bin/python3\n ansible_ssh_common_args: '-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no' \n \n Used for system information gathering and script execution: \n # playbook.yml\n- name: Gather Linux system information via SSH\n setup:\n gather_subset:\n - hardware\n delegate_to: r5900-2-linux \n vars:\n ansible_user: root\n ansible_connection: ssh\n \n Notes on hosts.yml Inventory Entries \n The inventory defines three connections to the same device: \n \n r5900-2-api : HTTPS API access \n r5900-2-cli : SSH CLI access with admin user \n r5900-2-linux : SSH root access \n \n SSH configuration: \n \n StrictHostKeyChecking=no : Skips host key verification \n ansible_become: no : No privilege escalation \n Custom Python path for Linux shell access \n \n Run playbooks with --ask-pass to prompt for the root password when accessing the Linux shell: \n ansible-playbook -i hosts.yml playbook.yml --ask-pass\n \n See the complete hosts.yml and playbook.yml examples below as templates for your own environments. The latest versions are hosted on GitHub. \n # hosts.yml - Ansible inventory configuration\n# This inventory file defines multiple ways to connect to the same F5OS device\n\nall:\n children:\n # F5OS API group - For REST API interactions via HTTPS\n # This method is used for F5OS platform configuration and monitoring via REST\n # User credentials configured as vars in playbook.yml\n f5os:\n hosts:\n r5900-2-api:\n ansible_host: r5900-2\n\n # F5OS CLI group - For F5OS CLI access via SSH\n # This method is used to run F5OS CLI commands via SSH using admin account\n # User credentials prompted for at runtime\n f5os_cli:\n hosts:\n r5900-2-cli:\n ansible_host: r5900-2\n ansible_user: admin\n ansible_connection: ssh\n ansible_become: no\n ansible_ssh_common_args: '-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no'\n\n # Linux group - For direct Linux shell access via SSH\n # This method is used to access the underlying Linux OS using root account\n # User credentials prompted for at runtime using --ask-pass\n linux_hosts:\n hosts:\n r5900-2-linux:\n ansible_host: r5900-2\n ansible_user: root\n ansible_connection: ssh\n ansible_become: no\n ansible_python_interpreter: /usr/bin/python3\n ansible_ssh_common_args: '-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no'\n # playbook.yml\n#\n# This playbook demonstrates multiple methods to interact with F5OS devices using Ansible:\n# 1. Using F5OS-specific Ansible modules from the F5 Ansible collection\n# - Connects via HTTPS to F5OS REST API\n# - Uses F5OS maintained collection modules\n# - Best for F5OS platform operations with verified modules\n#\n# 2. Using Ansible uri module to make direct REST API calls\n# - Connects via HTTPS to F5OS REST API\n# - Uses Ansible built-in uri module\n# - Best for custom REST API operations or when collection modules unavailable\n#\n# 3. Using SSH connection to access the underlying Linux OS\n# - Connects via SSH as root to Linux shell\n# - Uses Ansible built-in setup modules\n# - Best for system-level operations and diagnostics\n#\n# 4. Using SSH to connect as admin and run F5OS CLI commands\n# - Connects via SSH as admin to F5OS CLI\n# - Uses Ansible built-in shell module with sshpass\n# - Best for running operational commands and gathering CLI output\n#\n# 5. Using SSH connection to access the underlying Linux OS\n# - Connects via SSH as root to Linux shell\n# - Uses Ansible built-in SSH modules\n# - Uses Ansible built-in copy module to transfer Bash script\n# - Uses Ansible built-in shell module to execute script and display output\n# - Best for automated script-based management via f5sh commands\n#\n# Requirements:\n# - sshpass must be installed on the Ansible control node for F5OS CLI access\n# Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt-get install sshpass\n# RHEL/CentOS: sudo yum install sshpass\n#\n# References:\n# - F5OS Collection: https://clouddocs.f5.com/products/orchestration/ansible/devel/f5os/F5OS-index.html\n# - Ansible URI Module: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/builtin/uri_module.html\n# - F5OS-A/F5 rSeries - API: https://clouddocs.f5.com/api/rseries-api/rseries-api-index.html\n# - Ansible SSH Connection: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/builtin/ssh_connection.html\n# - F5OS-A/F5 rSeries - CLI: https://clouddocs.f5.com/api/rseries-api/rseries-cli-index.html\n#\n# Debug Notes:\n# - Each connection method has debug lines (commented out) that can be enabled\n# - Uncomment Debug Info lines when troubleshooting connection issues\n# - Use -vvvv verbosity for additional connection debugging\n# - CLI task can be modified to show stderr/stdout with no_log: false\n---\n- name: F5OS Management Tasks\n connection: httpapi\n hosts: r5900-2-api\n gather_facts: false\n collections:\n - f5networks.f5os\n any_errors_fatal: true\n\n vars_prompt:\n - name: f5os_api_password\n prompt: \"ENTER F5OS REST API password (admin user):\"\n private: yes\n - name: f5os_cli_password\n prompt: \"ENTER F5OS CLI SSH password (admin user):\"\n private: yes\n\n vars:\n ansible_user: \"admin\"\n ansible_httpapi_password: \"{{ f5os_api_password }}\"\n ansible_network_os: \"f5networks.f5os.f5os\"\n ansible_httpapi_use_ssl: true\n ansible_httpapi_use_proxy: false\n ansible_httpapi_validate_certs: \"no\"\n ansible_httpapi_port: 8888\n ansible_command_timeout: 1800\n persistent_log_messages: true\n api_base_url: \"https://{{ ansible_host }}:{{ ansible_httpapi_port }}/restconf\"\n\n tasks:\n # Method 1: Using F5OS maintained collection module\n - name: Get F5OS system information using F5OS Ansible module\n f5os_device_info:\n gather_subset:\n - system-info\n register: f5os_facts\n\n # Method 2: Using generic Ansible uri module for REST API\n - name: Get F5OS version information using REST API direct call\n uri:\n url: \"{{ api_base_url }}/data/openconfig-system:system/f5-system-version:version\"\n method: GET\n force_basic_auth: true\n user: \"{{ ansible_user }}\"\n password: \"{{ ansible_httpapi_password }}\"\n headers:\n Content-Type: \"application/yang-data+json\"\n Accept: \"application/yang-data+json\"\n validate_certs: \"{{ ansible_httpapi_validate_certs }}\"\n status_code: 200\n return_content: true\n register: f5os_version\n\n # Method 3: Using generic Ansible SSH for Linux system access\n - name: Gather Linux system information via SSH connection\n setup:\n gather_subset:\n - hardware\n delegate_to: r5900-2-linux\n vars:\n ansible_user: root\n ansible_connection: ssh\n register: linux_facts\n\n # Method 4: Using generic Ansible shell module for F5OS CLI\n - name: Get F5OS version information via CLI\n shell: |\n sshpass -p \"{{ f5os_cli_password }}\" ssh -t -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no admin@{{ hostvars['r5900-2-cli']['ansible_host'] }} << 'EOF'\n show sys version\n EOF\n delegate_to: localhost\n register: cli_version\n changed_when: false\n # no_log: false # Uncomment to show CLI output for debugging\n # failed_when: false # Uncomment to prevent CLI failures for debugging\n\n # Method 5: Using generic Ansible SSH connection to access the underlying Linux OS\n - name: Transfer f5sh_example.sh script to F5OS device\n copy:\n content: |\n #!/bin/bash\n f5sh show sys version\n dest: \"/root/f5sh_example.sh\"\n mode: '0755'\n delegate_to: r5900-2-linux\n vars:\n ansible_user: root\n ansible_connection: ssh\n register: script_transfer\n\n - name: Execute f5sh_example.sh script on F5OS device\n shell: \"/root/f5sh_example.sh\"\n delegate_to: r5900-2-linux\n vars:\n ansible_user: root\n ansible_connection: ssh\n register: script_output\n\n # Display combined information from all five methods\n - name: Show combined information from all sources\n vars:\n system_info:\n \"F5OS Version Info (via F5 maintained F5OS Ansible module collection, communicating over HTTPS REST API, using: admin account)\":\n \"Platform Type\": \"{{ f5os_facts.system_info.platform_type }}\"\n \"Software Version\": \"{{ f5os_facts.system_info.running_software.os_version }}\"\n # \"Debug Info\": \"{{ f5os_facts | default('f5os_facts not defined') }}\"\n \"F5OS Version Info (via built-in Ansible uri module, communicating over HTTPS REST API, using: admin account)\":\n \"OS Version\": \"{{ f5os_version.json['f5-system-version:version']['os-version'] }}\"\n \"Product\": \"{{ f5os_version.json['f5-system-version:version']['product'] }}\"\n \"Service Version\": \"{{ f5os_version.json['f5-system-version:version']['service-version'] }}\"\n # \"Debug Info\": \"{{ f5os_version | default('f5os_version not defined') }}\"\n \"Linux System Info (via built-in Ansible ssh module, communicating over SSH, using: root account and bash shell)\":\n \"Distribution\": \"{{ linux_facts.ansible_facts.ansible_distribution }}\"\n \"Kernel Version\": \"{{ linux_facts.ansible_facts.ansible_kernel }}\"\n \"Python Version\": \"{{ linux_facts.ansible_facts.ansible_python_version }}\"\n \"Total Memory\": \"{{ linux_facts.ansible_facts.ansible_memtotal_mb }} MB\"\n # \"Debug Info\": \"{{ linux_facts | default('linux_facts not defined') }}\"\n \"F5OS Version Info (via built-in Ansible ssh module, communicating over SSH, using: admin account and f5_confd_cli shell)\":\n \"OS Version\": \"{{ cli_version.stdout_lines[0].split()[-1] if cli_version is defined and cli_version.rc == 0 else 'Error getting CLI version' }}\"\n \"Service Version\": \"{{ cli_version.stdout_lines[1].split()[-1] if cli_version is defined and cli_version.rc == 0 else 'Error getting CLI version' }}\"\n \"Product\": \"{{ cli_version.stdout_lines[2].split()[-1] if cli_version is defined and cli_version.rc == 0 else 'Error getting CLI version' }}\"\n # \"CLI Return Code\": \"{{ cli_version.rc | default('rc not defined') }}\"\n # \"CLI STDOUT\": \"{{ cli_version.stdout_lines | default('stdout not defined') }}\"\n # \"CLI STDERR\": \"{{ cli_version.stderr_lines | default('stderr not defined') }}\"\n # \"Debug Info\": \"{{ cli_version | default('cli_version not defined') }}\"\n \"F5OS Version Info (via built-in Ansible script copy and execution modules, using: root account, bash shell, and f5sh commands)\":\n \"OS Version\": \"{{ script_output.stdout_lines[0].split()[-1] if script_output is defined and script_output.rc == 0 else 'Error executing script' }}\"\n \"Product\": \"{{ script_output.stdout_lines[2].split()[-1] if script_output is defined and script_output.rc == 0 else 'Error executing script' }}\"\n \"Service Version\": \"{{ script_output.stdout_lines[1].split()[-1] if script_output is defined and script_output.rc == 0 else 'Error executing script' }}\"\n # \"Script Return Code\": \"{{ script_output.rc | default('rc not defined') }}\"\n # \"Script STDOUT\": \"{{ script_output.stdout_lines | default('stdout not defined') }}\"\n # \"Script STDERR\": \"{{ script_output.stderr_lines | default('stderr not defined') }}\"\n # \"Debug Info\": \"{{ script_output | default('script_output not defined') }}\"\n debug:\n var: system_info \n \n Terminal Demo \n ansible-playbook -i hosts.yml playbook.yml --ask-pass\n \n \n \n Notes on Software Version Compatibility \n If using the F5-maintained F5OS collection, you'll need a compatible version of Ansible: https://github.com/F5Networks/f5-ansible-f5os \n If using an alternate method that depends on compatibility with the Python3 version on the remote host, confirm the Python3 version on your F5OS appliance: \n [root@appliance-1(r5900-2):Active] ~ # python3 --version\nPython 3.6.8\n \n ...against the ansible-core support matrix. \n \n Responsible Authentication \n This tutorial focused on simple examples using default local accounts (root, admin) and local authentication. \n In production, authentication is more complex, requiring: \n \n SSH key-based authentication instead of passwords \n API token authentication instead of basic auth \n Role-based access control with dedicated automation accounts \n Secure credential management (e.g. Ansible Vault) \n Regular credential rotation and audit logging \n Remote authentication (LDAP, TACACS+, RADIUS) \n Upgrading from self-signed and invalid certificates to Certificate Authority signed and validated certificates \n ","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})@stringLength":"21046","kudosSumWeight":0,"repliesCount":0,"readOnly":false,"images":{"__typename":"AssociatedImageConnection","edges":[{"__typename":"AssociatedImageEdge","cursor":"MjUuM3wyLjF8b3wyNXxfTlZffDE","node":{"__ref":"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMzkzOTctT0t4a2hK?revision=8\"}"}}],"totalCount":1,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}},"videos":{"__typename":"VideoConnection","edges":[],"totalCount":0,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}}},"Conversation:conversation:338614":{"__typename":"Conversation","id":"conversation:338614","topic":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","uid":338614},"lastPostingActivityTime":"2025-01-13T14:21:24.641-08:00","solved":false},"User:user:189438":{"__typename":"User","uid":189438,"login":"Gee_Chow","registrationData":{"__typename":"RegistrationData","status":null},"deleted":false,"avatar":{"__typename":"UserAvatar","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/dS0xODk0MzgtMTcxOTdpQ0QzNUFDNjdDREVENTRGNg"},"id":"user:189438"},"TkbTopicMessage:message:338614":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","subject":"Installing and Locking a Specific Version of F5 NGINX Plus","conversation":{"__ref":"Conversation:conversation:338614"},"id":"message:338614","revisionNum":5,"uid":338614,"depth":0,"board":{"__ref":"Tkb:board:TechnicalArticles"},"author":{"__ref":"User:user:189438"},"teaser@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":"","introduction":"","metrics":{"__typename":"MessageMetrics","views":232},"postTime":"2025-01-06T05:00:00.041-08:00","lastPublishTime":"2025-01-13T14:21:24.641-08:00","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":" A guide for installing and locking a specific version of NGINX Plus to ensure stability, meet internal policies, and prepare for controlled upgrades. \n Introduction \n The most common way to install F5 NGINX Plus is by using the package manager tool native to your Linux host (e.g., yum, apt-get, etc.). By default, the package manager installs the latest available version of NGINX Plus. However, there may be scenarios where you need to install an earlier version. To help you modify your automation scripts, we’ve provided example commands for selecting a specific version. \n Common Scenarios for Installing an Earlier Version of NGINX Plus \n \n Your internal policy requires sticking to internally tested versions before deploying the latest release. \n \n \n You prefer to maintain consistency by using the same version across your entire fleet for simplicity. \n \n \n You’d like to verify and meet additional requirements introduced in a newer release (e.g., NGINX Plus Release 33) before upgrading. \n \n Commands for Installing and Holding a Specific Version of NGINX Plus \n Use the following commands based on your Linux distribution to install and lock a prior version of NGINX Plus: \n Ubuntu 20.04, 22.04, 24.04 LTS \n sudo apt-get update \nsudo apt-get install -y nginx-plus=<VERSION> \nsudo apt-mark hold nginx-plus \n \n Debian 11, 12 \n sudo apt-get update \nsudo apt-get install -y nginx-plus=<VERSION> \nsudo apt-mark hold nginx-plus \n \n AlmaLinux 8, 9 / Rocky Linux 8, 9 / Oracle Linux 8.1+, 9 / RHEL 8.1+, 9 \n sudo yum install -y nginx-plus-<VERSION> \nsudo yum versionlock nginx-plus \n \n Amazon Linux 2 LTS, 2023 \n sudo yum install -y nginx-plus-<VERSION> \nsudo yum versionlock nginx-plus \n \n SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12, 15 SP5+ \n sudo zypper install nginx-plus=<VERSION> \nsudo zypper addlock nginx-plus \n \n Alpine Linux 3.17, 3.18, 3.19, 3.20 \n apk add nginx-plus=<VERSION> \necho \"nginx-plus hold\" | sudo tee -a /etc/apk/world \n \n FreeBSD 13, 14 \n pkg install nginx-plus-<VERSION> \npkg lock nginx-plus \n \n Notes \n \n Replace <VERSION> with the desired version (e.g., 32-2*). \n \n \n After installation, verify the installed version with the command: nginx -v. \n \n \n Holding or locking the package ensures it won’t be inadvertently upgraded during routine updates. \n \n Conclusion \n Installing and locking a specific version of NGINX Plus ensures stability, compliance with internal policies, and proper validation of new features before deployment. By following the provided commands tailored to your Linux distribution, you can confidently maintain control over your infrastructure while minimizing the risk of unintended upgrades. Regularly verifying the installed version and holding updates will help ensure consistency and reliability across your environments. ","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})@stringLength":"3034","kudosSumWeight":0,"repliesCount":0,"readOnly":false,"images":{"__typename":"AssociatedImageConnection","edges":[],"totalCount":0,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}},"videos":{"__typename":"VideoConnection","edges":[],"totalCount":0,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}}},"Conversation:conversation:334699":{"__typename":"Conversation","id":"conversation:334699","topic":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","uid":334699},"lastPostingActivityTime":"2024-10-08T10:09:52.107-07:00","solved":false},"User:user:210816":{"__typename":"User","uid":210816,"login":"Bob_Hanson","registrationData":{"__typename":"RegistrationData","status":null},"deleted":false,"avatar":{"__typename":"UserAvatar","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/m_assets/avatars/default/avatar-2.svg?time=0"},"id":"user:210816"},"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMzQ2OTkteElRSHFY?revision=12\"}":{"__typename":"AssociatedImage","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMzQ2OTkteElRSHFY?revision=12","title":"image.png","associationType":"BODY","width":739,"height":934,"altText":""},"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMzQ2OTktb3lhVUFq?revision=12\"}":{"__typename":"AssociatedImage","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMzQ2OTktb3lhVUFq?revision=12","title":"Screenshot 2024-09-20 at 3.24.21 PM.png","associationType":"BODY","width":1313,"height":597,"altText":""},"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMzQ2OTktVDRET2FN?revision=12\"}":{"__typename":"AssociatedImage","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMzQ2OTktVDRET2FN?revision=12","title":"Screenshot 2024-09-24 at 11.00.52 AM.png","associationType":"BODY","width":1335,"height":945,"altText":""},"TkbTopicMessage:message:334699":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","subject":"BIG-IP Next – Introduction to the Blueprints API","conversation":{"__ref":"Conversation:conversation:334699"},"id":"message:334699","revisionNum":12,"uid":334699,"depth":0,"board":{"__ref":"Tkb:board:TechnicalArticles"},"author":{"__ref":"User:user:210816"},"teaser@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":"","introduction":"","metrics":{"__typename":"MessageMetrics","views":286},"postTime":"2024-10-02T05:00:00.039-07:00","lastPublishTime":"2024-10-02T05:00:00.039-07:00","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":" If you have ever attempted to automate the BIG-IP configuration, you are probably familiar with F5’s AS3 extension. Although AS3 is supported in BIG-IP Next, there is another API that might be the better option if you haven’t started your migration journey up until now. This is called the Blueprints API. In this article, I want to show you how to use it to automate your applications with AS3. \n \n Overview \n When you use the BIG-IP Next GUI, you instantly see the benefits of having a centrally managed configuration across all your BIG-IP instances. The steps to create an application service in the GUI now have a siloed setup where you define 4 main sections separately: \n \n Application Properties \n Virtual Server Properties \n Pool Properties \n Deployment Properties \n \n Each one of these sections allows you to adjust areas of your application service while still having a way to manage configurations across multiple BIG-IP instances. In other words, you can define one pool under the pool properties, but still have different pool members under the deployment properties for each of your BIG-IP instances. This creates a centrally managed application service that does not require the exact same configuration in each environment. \n When you perform these tasks in the GUI, BIG-IP Next is generating its own API calls internally. It takes each of your configuration items outlined in the 4 sections above and defines the application service as a Blueprint. This Blueprint is then used to modify anything about the configuration/deployment moving forward. If you aren’t a fan of using a GUI and you are trying to automate, this same exact API is exposed to you as well. This means we get to use the same centrally managed configuration in our API calls. It also means that we can easily automate existing application services by simply using the API to manage them moving forward. \n So what does this Blueprint API look like? Below is sample JSON used to create a Blueprint called “bobs-blueprint”: \n {\n \"name\":\"bobs-blueprint\",\n \"set_name\": \"Examples\",\n \"template_name\": \"http\",\n \"parameters\": {\n \"application_description\": \"\",\n \"application_name\": \"bobs-blueprint\",\n \"enable_Global_Resiliency\": false,\n \"pools\": [\n {\n \"loadBalancingMode\": \"round-robin\",\n \"monitorType\": [\n \"http\"\n ],\n \"poolName\": \"juice\",\n \"servicePort\": 8080\n }\n ],\n \"virtuals\": [\n {\n \"FastL4_TOS\": 0,\n \"FastL4_idleTimeout\": 600,\n \"FastL4_looseClose\": true,\n \"FastL4_looseInitialization\": true,\n \"FastL4_pvaAcceleration\": \"full\",\n \"FastL4_pvaDynamicClientPackets\": 1,\n \"FastL4_pvaDynamicServerPackets\": 0,\n \"FastL4_resetOnTimeout\": true,\n \"FastL4_tcpCloseTimeout\": 43200,\n \"FastL4_tcpHandshakeTimeout\": 43200,\n \"InspectionServicesEnum\": [],\n \"TCP_idle_timeout\": 60,\n \"UDP_idle_timeout\": 60,\n \"ciphers\": \"DEFAULT\",\n \"ciphers_server\": \"DEFAULT\",\n \"enable_Access\": false,\n \"enable_FastL4\": false,\n \"enable_FastL4_DSR\": false,\n \"enable_HTTP2_Profile\": false,\n \"enable_HTTP_Profile\": false,\n \"enable_InspectionServices\": false,\n \"enable_SsloPolicy\": false,\n \"enable_TCP_Profile\": false,\n \"enable_TLS_Client\": false,\n \"enable_TLS_Server\": false,\n \"enable_UDP_Profile\": false,\n \"enable_WAF\": false,\n \"enable_iRules\": false,\n \"enable_mirroring\": true,\n \"enable_snat\": true,\n \"iRulesEnum\": [],\n \"multiCertificatesEnum\": [],\n \"perRequestAccessPolicyEnum\": \"\",\n \"pool\": \"juice\",\n \"snat_addresses\": [],\n \"snat_automap\": true,\n \"tls_c_1_1\": false,\n \"tls_c_1_2\": true,\n \"tls_c_1_3\": false,\n \"tls_s_1_2\": true,\n \"tls_s_1_3\": false,\n \"trustCACertificate\": \"\",\n \"virtualName\": \"bobs-vs\",\n \"virtualPort\": 80\n }\n ]\n }\n} \n \n As you can see, the structure of this JSON is siloed in a very similar way to the GUI: \n \n Note: For those readers who are wondering where the Deployment section is, that is handled in a separate API call after the blueprint has been created. I’ll discuss that in more detail later. \n In the sections below, I’ll review a few of the API endpoints you can use with some steps on how to perform the following common tasks: \n \n Viewing an existing Blueprint \n Creating a new Blueprint \n Deploying a Blueprint \n \n \n Viewing an Existing Blueprint \n Before we start creating a new Blueprint from scratch, it is probably a good idea to explain how we can view a list of our current Blueprints. To do so, we simply make a GET request to the following API endpoint: \n GET https://{{bigip_next_cm_mgmt_ip}}/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints \n \n This will return a list of every Blueprint created by the GUI and/or API. Below is an example output: \n {\n \"_embedded\": {\n \"appsvcs\": [\n {\n \"_links\": {\n \"self\": {\n \"href\": \"/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints//3f2ef264-cf09-45c8-a925-f2c8fccf09f6\"\n }\n },\n \"created\": \"2024-06-25T13:32:22.160399Z\",\n \"deployments\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"1e5f9c06-8800-4ab7-ad5e-648d55b83b68\",\n \"instance_id\": \"ce179e66-b075-4068-bc4e-8e212954da49\",\n \"target\": {\n \"address\": \"10.2.1.3\"\n },\n \"parameters\": {\n \"pools\": [\n {\n \"isServicePool\": false,\n \"poolMembers\": [\n {\n \"address\": \"10.1.3.100\",\n \"name\": \"old\"\n },\n {\n \"address\": \"10.2.3.100\",\n \"name\": \"new\"\n }\n ],\n \"poolName\": \"juice\"\n }\n ],\n \"virtuals\": [\n {\n \"allow_networks\": [],\n \"enable_allow_networks\": false,\n \"virtualAddress\": \"10.2.2.11\",\n \"virtualName\": \"juice-shop\"\n }\n ]\n },\n \"last_successful_deploy_time\": \"2024-06-25T17:46:00.193649Z\",\n \"modified\": \"2024-06-25T17:46:00.193649Z\",\n \"last_record\": {\n \"id\": \"cb6a06a1-c66d-41c3-a747-9a27b101a0f1\",\n \"task_id\": \"6a65642d-810b-4194-9693-91a15f6d1ef0\",\n \"created_application_path\": \"/applications/tenantSrLEVevFQnWwXT90590F3USQ/juice-shop\",\n \"start_time\": \"2024-06-25T17:45:55.392732Z\",\n \"end_time\": \"2024-06-25T17:46:00.193649Z\",\n \"status\": \"completed\"\n }\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"001e14e8-7900-482a-bdd4-aca35967a5cc\",\n \"instance_id\": \"0546acf5-3b88-422d-a948-28bbf0973212\",\n \"target\": {\n \"address\": \"10.2.1.4\"\n },\n \"parameters\": {\n \"pools\": [\n {\n \"isServicePool\": false,\n \"poolMembers\": [\n {\n \"address\": \"10.1.3.100\",\n \"name\": \"old\"\n },\n {\n \"address\": \"10.2.3.100\",\n \"name\": \"new\"\n }\n ],\n \"poolName\": \"juice\"\n }\n ],\n \"virtuals\": [\n {\n \"allow_networks\": [],\n \"enable_allow_networks\": false,\n \"virtualAddress\": \"10.2.2.12\",\n \"virtualName\": \"juice-shop\"\n }\n ]\n },\n \"last_successful_deploy_time\": \"2024-06-25T17:46:07.94836Z\",\n \"modified\": \"2024-06-25T17:46:07.94836Z\",\n \"last_record\": {\n \"id\": \"8a8a29be-e56b-4ef1-bf6a-92f7ccc9e9b7\",\n \"task_id\": \"0632cc18-9f0f-4a5e-875a-0d769b02e19b\",\n \"created_application_path\": \"/applications/tenantSrLEVevFQnWwXT90590F3USQ/juice-shop\",\n \"start_time\": \"2024-06-25T17:45:55.406377Z\",\n \"end_time\": \"2024-06-25T17:46:07.94836Z\",\n \"status\": \"completed\"\n }\n }\n ],\n \"deployments_count\": {\n \"total\": 2,\n \"completed\": 2\n },\n \"description\": \"\",\n \"fqdn\": \"\",\n \"gslb_enabled\": false,\n \"id\": \"3f2ef264-cf09-45c8-a925-f2c8fccf09f6\",\n \"modified\": \"2024-06-25T17:32:09.174243Z\",\n \"name\": \"juice-shop\",\n \"set_name\": \"Examples\",\n \"successful_instances\": 2,\n \"template_name\": \"http\",\n \"tenant_name\": \"tenantSrLEVevFQnWwXT90590F3USQ\",\n \"type\": \"FAST\"\n }\n ]\n },\n \"_links\": {\n \"self\": {\n \"href\": \"/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints/\"\n }\n },\n \"count\": 1,\n \"total\": 1\n} \n \n In the example above, I only have one Blueprint in my BIG-IP Next CM instance. If we look deeper into the output, we can start to see some detail around the configuration parameters as well as the deployment parameters for each BIG-IP. There is also an ID field in the JSON that we can use to reference a specific Blueprint. In the example above, we have: \n \"id\": \"3f2ef264-cf09-45c8-a925-f2c8fccf09f6\" \n \n This is important because as we start to modify, deploy, or delete our existing blueprints, we will need this ID to be able to make changes. We can also use this ID to view more detail on a specific Blueprint rather than an entire list of all Blueprints. To do so, we simply follow make a request to the endpoint below: \n GET https://{{bigip_next_cm_mgmt_ip}}/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints/{{Blueprint_id}} \n \n In our example, this would be: \n GET https://{{bigip_next_cm_mgmt_ip}}/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints/3f2ef264-cf09-45c8-a925-f2c8fccf09f6 \n \n The output from this API call provides robust detail on the Blueprint. It is probably too much detail to paste in an article like this, but there are some examples here if interested: https://clouddocs.f5.com/products/bigip-next/mgmt-api/latest/ApiReferences/bigip_public_api_ref/r_openapi-next.html#tag/Application-Services/operation/GetApplicationByID \n Viewing a Blueprint like this can provide us with the latest configuration of our application service so that we can ensure we are using the most up-to-date files. It also can provide us with some templates/example configurations that we can use to create new application services moving forward. \n \n Creating a new Blueprint \n Now that we have a pretty good understanding of the JSON structure and we know how to view some examples of Blueprints that have already been created, we can simply use them as a reference and create our own Blueprint from scratch. The basic format for creating a new Blueprint is below: \n {\n \"name\": <blueprint_name>,\n \"set_name\": <template_set>\n \"template_name\": <template_name>,\n \"parameters\": {\n \"application_description\": <simple_description>,\n \"application_name\": <blueprint_name>,\n \"enable_Global_Resiliency\": false,\n \"pools\": [\n {\n\t <pool_configuration_parameters>\n }\n ],\n \"virtuals\": [\n {\n\t <virtual_server_configuration parameters>\n }\n ]\n }\n} \n \n More detail on each of the variable values below: \n \n <blueprint_name> - This is the name you choose for your blueprint. I generally recommend this name be the same in both the “name” field and the “application_name” field which is why in the JSON above you’ll see this in both. \n <template_set> - This is going to be the template set containing your FAST template. If you are using the default templates provided to you, this value would be “Examples” \n <template_name> - This is the specific FAST template you are going to use for the configuration. If you are using the default template provided to you, this value would be “http” \n <simple_description> - This can be any short description you would like to use for your application service. \n <pool_configuration_parameters> - This will be the list of parameters that you are going to define for your pool. You do not have to fill in every single value if the FAST template contains values for that field. \n <virtual_server_configuration parameters> - This will be the list of parameters that you are going to define for your virtual server. You do not have to fill in every single value if the FAST template contains values for that field. \n \n Important Note: When creating your JSON, you will be defining a FAST template to use along with your application service (just like you would in the GUI). This means that you do not have to fill out every value under your pool and virtual server configuration. It will take in the values provided from your FAST template. \n With our guide above, we can now make a new Blueprint for the “bobs-blueprint” example I referenced earlier: \n {\n \"name\":\"bobs-blueprint\",\n \"set_name\": \"Examples\",\n \"template_name\": \"http\",\n \"parameters\": {\n \"application_description\":\"This is a test of the blueprints api\",\n \"application_name\": \"bobs-blueprint\",\n \"pools\": [\n {\n \"loadBalancingMode\": \"round-robin\",\n \"monitorType\": [\n \"http\"\n ],\n \"poolName\": \"juice_pool\",\n \"servicePort\": 3000\n }\n ],\n \"virtuals\": [\n {\n \"pool\": \"juice_pool\",\n \"virtualName\": \"blueprint_vs\",\n \"virtualPort\": 80\n }\n ]\n }\n} \n \n As you can see, this is a much more condensed version of the original JSON I had for the example shown in the beginning of this article. Again, this is because we are referencing the FAST template “Examples/http” and taking in those values to configure the rest of the application service. \n With our newly created JSON, the last step to creating this Blueprint is to send this in a POST request to the following API endpoint: \n POST https://{{bigip_next_cm_mgmt_ip}}/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints \n \n After sending our POST, you'll notice we are given the \"id\" of the Blueprint in the response. As mentioned above, we can use this ID to modify, deploy, etc. \n {\n \"_links\": {\n \"self\": {\n \"href\": \"/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints/9c35a614-65ac-4d18-8082-589ea9bc78d9/deployments\"\n }\n },\n \"deployments\": [\n {\n \"deploymentID\": \"1a153f44-acaf-4487-81c7-61b8b5498627\",\n \"instanceID\": \"4ef739d1-9ef1-4eb7-a5bb-36c6d1334b16\",\n \"status\": \"pending\",\n \"taskID\": \"518534c8-9368-48dd-b399-94f55e72d5a7\",\n \"task_type\": \"CREATE\"\n },\n {\n \"deploymentID\": \"82ca8d6d-dbfd-43a8-a604-43f170d9f190\",\n \"instanceID\": \"0546acf5-3b88-422d-a948-28bbf0973212\",\n \"status\": \"pending\",\n \"taskID\": \"7ea24157-1412-4963-9560-56fb0ab78d8c\",\n \"task_type\": \"CREATE\"\n }\n ],\n \"id\": \"9c35a614-65ac-4d18-8082-589ea9bc78d9\"\n} \n \n Now that the Blueprint has been created, we can go into our BIG-IP Next CM GUI and see our newly created application service: \n \n \n You’ll notice that our newly created application service is in Draft mode. This is because we have not deployed the service yet. We’ll discuss that in the next section. \n \n Deploying a Blueprint \n Once we have our Blueprint created, the final step is to configure the deployment. As discussed above, this is done through a separate API Call. The format for a deployment is as follows: \n {\n \"deployments\": [\n {\n \"parameters\": {\n \"pools\": [\n {\n \"poolName\": <pool_name>\n \"poolMembers\": [\n {\n \"name\": <node1_name>,\n \"address\": <node1_ip_address>\n },\n {\n \"name\": <node2_name>,\n \"address\": <node2_ip_address>\n }\n ]\n }\n ],\n \"virtuals\": [\n {\n \"virtualName\": <virtual_server_name>,\n \"virtualAddress\": <virtual_server_ip_address>\n }\n ]\n },\n \"target\": {\n \"address\": <bigip_instance_ip_address>\n },\n \"allow_overwrite\": true\n }\n ]\n} \n \n Keep in mind that some of these values above are referencing names from your Blueprint configuration. These names need to be exactly the same. See below for more detail on each of these values: \n \n <pool_name> - This references the pool from your Blueprint. This value must match what was used for “poolName” in the pool configuration of the Blueprint. \n <node1_name> - This is any name you choose to describe your node in the pool \n <node1_ip_address> - This is the specific IP address for your node \n <node2_name> - If you are using more than one node, this would be the name you choose to represent your second node in the pool. This format can repeat for 3 nodes, 4 nodes, etc. \n <node2_ip_address> - If you are using more than one node, this would be the IP address of your second node. This format can repeat for 3 nodes, 4 nodes, etc. \n <virtual_server_name> - This references the virtual server from your Blueprint. This value must match what was used for “virtualName” in the virtuals configuration of the Blueprint. \n <virtual_server_ip_address> - This would be the IP address of the Virtual Server being deployed on the BIG-IP \n <bigip_instance_ip_address> - This is the IP address of the BIG-IP instance we are deploying to \n \n Important Note: If you are deploying the same application to more than one BIG-IP instance, you can include multiple deployment blocks in your API call. \n Using the format above, we can now create our deployment for “bobs-blueprint”: \n {\n \"deployments\": [\n {\n \"parameters\": {\n \"pools\": [\n {\n \"poolName\": \"juice_pool\",\n \"poolMembers\": [\n {\n \"name\": \"node1\",\n \"address\": \"10.1.3.100\"\n }\n ]\n }\n ],\n \"virtuals\": [\n {\n \"virtualName\": \"blueprint_vs\",\n \"virtualAddress\": \"10.2.2.15\"\n }\n ]\n },\n \"target\": {\n \"address\": \"10.2.1.3\"\n },\n \"allow_overwrite\": true\n },\n {\n \"parameters\": {\n \"pools\": [\n {\n \"poolName\": \"juice_pool\",\n \"poolMembers\": [\n {\n \"name\": \"node1\",\n \"address\": \"10.2.3.100\"\n }\n ]\n }\n ],\n \"virtuals\": [\n {\n \"virtualName\": \"blueprint_vs\",\n \"virtualAddress\": \"10.2.2.20\"\n }\n ]\n },\n \"target\": {\n \"address\": \"10.2.1.4\"\n },\n \"allow_overwrite\": true\n }\n ]\n} \n In this example deployment, I am deploying to two separate BIG-IP instances (10.2.1.3 and 10.2.1.4). This is where we can really start to see the value of the Blueprints API. With this structure, I can use the same pool and virtual server setup from our Blueprint, while still using different Virtual Server and Node IP addresses for the deployment at each instance. All of this is done with one API call. \n The final step is to send this in a POST request to our deployments endpoint. The endpoint is very similar to viewing a blueprint as it uses our same Blueprint ID. See the format below: \n POST https://{{bigip_next_cm_mgmt_ip}}/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints/{{Blueprint_id}}/deployments \n \n Using the ID from the response we received after creating our example blueprint, our endpoint would be: \n POST https://{{bigip_next_cm_mgmt_ip}}/api/v1/spaces/default/appsvcs/blueprints/9c35a614-65ac-4d18-8082-589ea9bc78d9/deployments \n \n After sending our POST, we can go back to the BIG-IP Next CM GUI and see our application service is no longer considered a Draft. If we click into the application service, we’ll see our two deployments are up and healthy: \n \n Conclusion \n Hopefully after reading this article, you can see the value of using the Blueprints API for your automation. I think as an alternative to other automation methods, this can provide benefits such as: \n \n Same centrally managed format/structure as GUI created applications \n Since the BIG-IP Next CM GUI is already creating these JSON files under the hood, we can easily automate existing applications by using the Blueprints API for them moving forward \n Deployments are handled separately from your application configuration \n You can deploy your application service to multiple BIG-IP instances at once \n Combining the Blueprints API with FAST templates allows you make application on-boarding much more streamlined. \n \n If you liked this article and are looking for more information our our Blueprints API, please visit the API documentation here: https://clouddocs.f5.com/products/bigip-next/mgmt-api/latest/ApiReferences/bigip_public_api_ref/r_openapi-next.html#tag/Application-Services/operation/GetAllApplications ","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})@stringLength":"24384","kudosSumWeight":2,"repliesCount":2,"readOnly":false,"images":{"__typename":"AssociatedImageConnection","edges":[{"__typename":"AssociatedImageEdge","cursor":"MjUuM3wyLjF8b3wyNXxfTlZffDE","node":{"__ref":"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMzQ2OTkteElRSHFY?revision=12\"}"}},{"__typename":"AssociatedImageEdge","cursor":"MjUuM3wyLjF8b3wyNXxfTlZffDI","node":{"__ref":"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMzQ2OTktb3lhVUFq?revision=12\"}"}},{"__typename":"AssociatedImageEdge","cursor":"MjUuM3wyLjF8b3wyNXxfTlZffDM","node":{"__ref":"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMzQ2OTktVDRET2FN?revision=12\"}"}}],"totalCount":3,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}},"videos":{"__typename":"VideoConnection","edges":[],"totalCount":0,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}}},"Conversation:conversation:276033":{"__typename":"Conversation","id":"conversation:276033","topic":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","uid":276033},"lastPostingActivityTime":"2024-09-26T14:10:02.028-07:00","solved":false},"User:user:350873":{"__typename":"User","uid":350873,"login":"Karen_Jester_42","registrationData":{"__typename":"RegistrationData","status":null},"deleted":false,"avatar":{"__typename":"UserAvatar","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/m_assets/avatars/default/avatar-10.svg?time=0"},"id":"user:350873"},"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0yNzYwMzMtMTYwOTlpRTZBOEFGRjNFMjZGRkZDMg?revision=2\"}":{"__typename":"AssociatedImage","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0yNzYwMzMtMTYwOTlpRTZBOEFGRjNFMjZGRkZDMg?revision=2","title":"0151T000003d5HxQAI.jpg","associationType":"BODY","width":454,"height":189,"altText":"null"},"TkbTopicMessage:message:276033":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","subject":"What is an iApp?","conversation":{"__ref":"Conversation:conversation:276033"},"id":"message:276033","revisionNum":2,"uid":276033,"depth":0,"board":{"__ref":"Tkb:board:TechnicalArticles"},"author":{"__ref":"User:user:350873"},"teaser@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":"","introduction":"","metrics":{"__typename":"MessageMetrics","views":1498},"postTime":"2011-09-21T09:05:07.000-07:00","lastPublishTime":"2024-09-26T14:10:02.028-07:00","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":" iApp is a seriously cool, game changing technology that was released in F5’s v11. There are so many benefits to our customers with this tool that I am going to break it down over a series of posts. Today we will focus on what it is. \n Hopefully you are already familiar with the power of F5’s iRules technology. If not, here is a quick background. F5 products support a scripting language based on TCL. This language allows an administrator to tell their BIG-IP to intercept, inspect, transform, direct and track inbound or outbound application traffic. An iRule is the bit of code that contains the set of instructions the system uses to process data flowing through it, either in the header or payload of a packet. This technology allows our customers to solve real-time application issues, security vulnerabilities, etc that are unique to their environment or are time sensitive. \n \n An iApp is like iRules, but for the management plane. Again, there is a scripting language that administrators can build instructions the system will use. But instead of describing how to process traffic, in the case of iApp, it is used to describe the user interface and how the system will act on information gathered from the user. The bit of code that contains these instructions is referred to as an iApp or iApp template. A system administrator can use F5-provided iApp templates installed on their BIG-IP to configure a service for a new application. They will be presented with the text and input fields defined by the iApp author. Once complete, their answers are submitted, and the template implements the configuration. First an application service object (ASO) is created that ties together all the configuration objects which are created, like virtual servers and profiles. Each object created by the iApp is then marked with the ASO to identify their membership in the application for future management and reporting. \n That about does it for what an iApp is…..next up, how they can work for you. ","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})@stringLength":"2014","kudosSumWeight":0,"repliesCount":4,"readOnly":false,"images":{"__typename":"AssociatedImageConnection","edges":[{"__typename":"AssociatedImageEdge","cursor":"MjUuM3wyLjF8b3wyNXxfTlZffDE","node":{"__ref":"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0yNzYwMzMtMTYwOTlpRTZBOEFGRjNFMjZGRkZDMg?revision=2\"}"}}],"totalCount":1,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}},"videos":{"__typename":"VideoConnection","edges":[],"totalCount":0,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}}},"Conversation:conversation:333178":{"__typename":"Conversation","id":"conversation:333178","topic":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","uid":333178},"lastPostingActivityTime":"2024-09-11T08:23:19.422-07:00","solved":false},"TkbTopicMessage:message:333178":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","subject":"VIPTest: Rapid Application Testing for F5 Environments","conversation":{"__ref":"Conversation:conversation:333178"},"id":"message:333178","revisionNum":4,"uid":333178,"depth":0,"board":{"__ref":"Tkb:board:TechnicalArticles"},"author":{"__ref":"User:user:275883"},"teaser@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":" 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. ","introduction":"","metrics":{"__typename":"MessageMetrics","views":754},"postTime":"2024-08-20T05:00:00.039-07:00","lastPublishTime":"2024-09-04T09:43:48.631-07:00","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":" The Motivation Behind VIPTest \n As an F5 Solutions Architect, I noticed a recurring challenge with prospective customers: there was no quick way to \"grade\" the success of migrating from their current environment to F5 solutions. This gap made it difficult to quickly identify and address problem areas. To solve this, I developed VIPTest - a tool designed as a convenience for anyone considering moving their applications from a different vendor solution (e.g., Citrix NetScaler) to F5. \n However, VIPTest's utility extends far beyond migration scenarios. It can be used in any environment where you introduce a change and need an automated process to assess the success of these changes. Whether you're upgrading software, modifying configurations, or performing routine maintenance, VIPTest provides a rapid, comprehensive snapshot of your application landscape. \n F5's Application Services and Security Solutions \n Before we dive into VIPTest, let's briefly explore F5's three new families of Application Services and Security solutions: \n \n \n F5 Distributed Cloud (XC): A SaaS-based security, networking, and application management solution that provides multi-cloud networking, web application and API protection, and edge-based computing. \n \n \n BIG-IP Next: The next generation of F5's flagship product, offering advanced traffic management, security, and analytics in a more flexible, software-first architecture. \n \n \n NGINX: A suite of cloud native technologies that provide API gateway, reverse proxy, and application security, known for its high performance and scalability. \n \n \n With VIPTest, you can confidently introduce changes to any of these solutions and quickly assess their impact. It's equally valuable for evaluating initial migrations and for ongoing operational changes within the same solution. \n The Problem VIPTest Solves \n Customers often lack a quick, automated way to assess the impact of environment changes on their applications. VIPTest addresses this by providing: \n \n Fast, concurrent testing of multiple URLs \n Pre and post-change comparisons \n Detection of improvements (e.g., TLS upgrades, HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/2 upgrades) and issues (e.g., broken connectivity) \n Identification of deprecated applications so you don't wast time testing 'dead' URLs \n Rapid assessment when migrating from another vendor's solution, such as Citrix NetScaler \n A simple mechanism to target just a staging environment during testing by overriding system DNS with static IP entries \n \n Let's explore how VIPTest works and how you can leverage it in your F5 environment. \n How VIPTest Works \n VIPTest, available on GitHub, accepts a CSV file containing URLs and IP addresses. It then: \n \n Validates URLs and IP addresses \n Performs HTTP/HTTPS requests \n Checks TLS versions and ciphers \n Tests connectivity (ping and telnet) \n Reports results for easy comparison \n \n Key Features \n \n \n Concurrent Processing: VIPTest uses Python's multiprocessing module to test as many URLs simultaneously as your client machine can support. On my modest Intel 10th gen / 6 Core laptop, I can test 1000 URLs in less than one minute. \n \n \n Flexible URL Handling: It supports various URL formats, including: \n \n Full URLs (http://example.com) \n IP addresses with ports (192.168.1.1:80) \n URLs with custom ports (https://example.com:8443) \n \n \n \n Detailed Reporting: VIPTest provides information on: \n \n HTTP response codes \n TLS versions and ciphers \n IP resolution \n Connectivity status \n \n \n \n VIPTest works with Linux, Windows (WSL2), and MacOS (Zsh using homebrew). \n Setting Up VIPTest \n See README.md for full installation and useage details. \n \n \n Ensure you have Python 3.8+ installed: \n python3 --version \n \n Create a virtual environment: \n python3 -m venv myenv\nsource myenv/bin/activate \n \n Clone the VIPTest repository: \n git clone https://github.com/tmarfil/viptest.git\ncd viptest \n \n Install requirements: \n pip3 install -r requirements.txt \n \n Make viptest.py executable: \n chmod +x viptest.py \n \n Using VIPTest \n \n \n Create a CSV file with your URLs (see README.md for format details). \n \n \n Run VIPTest: \n viptest.py --csv your_file.csv -c 50 \n This tests URLs concurrently using 50 processes. \n \n \n Save the output: \n viptest.py --csv your_file.csv -c 50 > pre_change_results.log \n \n Make your environment changes. \n \n \n Run VIPTest again: \n viptest.py --csv your_file.csv -c 50 > post_change_results.log \n \n Compare results: \n diff pre_change_results.log post_change_results.log \n \n The Power of HTTPX \n VIPTest leverages the HTTPX client for Python3: \n \n HTTP/2 Support: Enables testing of modern application stacks. \n Automatic Retries: Improves reliability in unstable network conditions. \n Connection Pooling: Enhances performance for multiple requests to the same host. \n Timeout Handling: Prevents hung requests from slowing down the entire test suite. \n \n Concurrent Testing with Multiprocessing \n The Python multiprocessing package is crucial for VIPTest's performance. Here's how it works: \n \n The URL list is divided into chunks. \n Each chunk is processed by a separate Python process. \n Results are collected in a shared queue. \n \n This approach allows VIPTest to test one thousand URLs in less than one minute. The Python code implements this using: \n if args.concurrent:\n chunk_size = len(urls) // args.concurrent\n chunks = list(chunked_iterable(urls, chunk_size))\n processes = []\n for chunk in chunks:\n p = multiprocessing.Process(target=process_urls, args=(chunk, output_queue, counter))\n processes.append(p)\n p.start() \n Automating with CI/CD \n Integrating VIPTest into your CI/CD pipeline ensures consistent testing. Here's a basic GitHub Actions workflow: \n name: VIPTest\n\non:\n push:\n branches: [ main ]\n pull_request:\n branches: [ main ]\n\njobs:\n test:\n runs-on: ubuntu-latest\n steps:\n - uses: actions/checkout@v2\n - name: Set up Python\n uses: actions/setup-python@v2\n with:\n python-version: '3.12'\n - name: Install dependencies\n run: |\n python -m pip install --upgrade pip\n pip install -r requirements.txt\n - name: Run VIPTest\n run: |\n viptest.py --csv testfile.csv -c 50 > test_results.log\n - name: Upload results\n uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2\n with:\n name: test-results\n path: test_results.log \n This workflow runs VIPTest on every push to the main branch or pull request, saving the results as an artifact. \n For GitLab users, a similar pipeline can be created using .gitlab-ci.yml: \n stages:\n - test\n\nviptest:\n stage: test\n image: python:3.12\n script:\n - pip install -r requirements.txt\n - viptest.py --csv testfile.csv -c 50 > test_results.log\n artifacts:\n paths:\n - test_results.log \n Conclusion \n VIPTest empowers F5 customers to confidently make environment changes across all F5 solutions - from Distributed Cloud (XC) to BIG-IP Next and NGINX. By providing quick, comprehensive application testing, it reduces risk and improves the success rate of migrations, upgrades, and day-to-day operations. Whether you're moving from a competitor's solution or optimizing your current F5 setup, VIPTest is an invaluable tool in your toolkit. \n Start using VIPTest today to ensure your applications stay healthy through every environment change! ","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})@stringLength":"7381","kudosSumWeight":5,"repliesCount":2,"readOnly":false,"images":{"__typename":"AssociatedImageConnection","edges":[],"totalCount":0,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}},"videos":{"__typename":"VideoConnection","edges":[],"totalCount":0,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}}},"Conversation:conversation:330193":{"__typename":"Conversation","id":"conversation:330193","topic":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","uid":330193},"lastPostingActivityTime":"2024-08-28T10:07:18.146-07:00","solved":false},"User:user:73390":{"__typename":"User","uid":73390,"login":"Doug_Gallarda","registrationData":{"__typename":"RegistrationData","status":null},"deleted":false,"avatar":{"__typename":"UserAvatar","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/dS03MzM5MC16eVAxM0E?image-coordinates=48%2C0%2C1204%2C1156"},"id":"user:73390"},"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMzAxOTMtWFVKdUlP?revision=4\"}":{"__typename":"AssociatedImage","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMzAxOTMtWFVKdUlP?revision=4","title":"Screenshot 2024-05-30 at 9.13.53 PM.png","associationType":"BODY","width":1220,"height":988,"altText":""},"TkbTopicMessage:message:330193":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","subject":"NGINX Virtual Machine Building with cloud-init","conversation":{"__ref":"Conversation:conversation:330193"},"id":"message:330193","revisionNum":4,"uid":330193,"depth":0,"board":{"__ref":"Tkb:board:TechnicalArticles"},"author":{"__ref":"User:user:73390"},"teaser@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":" Traditionally, building new servers was a manual process. A system administrator had a run book with all the steps required and would perform each task one by one. If the admin had multiple servers to build the same steps were repeated over and over. \n All public cloud compute platforms provide an automation tool called cloud-init that makes it easy to automate configuration tasks while a new VM instance is being launched. \n In this article, you will learn how to automate the process of building out a new NGINX Plus server using cloud-init. ","introduction":"Quickly create fresh NGINX VMs on any cloud provider","metrics":{"__typename":"MessageMetrics","views":730},"postTime":"2024-06-07T05:00:00.037-07:00","lastPublishTime":"2024-08-28T10:07:18.146-07:00","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":" The joy and burden of building new servers \n The initial build of a new application server requires multiple steps. First, the operating system must be installed. Then additional software packages need to be added as required by the application. Lastly, both the operating system and software package configurations need to be customized to the needs of the runtime environment. \n Traditionally, building new servers was a manual process. A system administrator had a run book with all the steps required and would perform each task one by one. If the admin had multiple servers to build, the same steps were repeated over and over. \n Looking at Installing NGINX Plus on Debian or Ubuntu as an example, an administrator needs to complete around 14 tasks. If these tasks must be performed manually every time a new VM is launched, much time can be wasted. \n One way to reduce this burden is to build out one server, snapshot it, and then clone that snapshot for every additional server that needs to be deployed. All hypervisor platforms have this capability. The problem with snapshots, however, is that it captures the state of a server at a specific moment in time. If new versions of the operating system or software packages are released, your golden image becomes obsolete. \n Rather than taking a picture of a server after it's been configured, another approach is to automate the execution of the configuration tasks themselves. Every time a new server is launched, the configuration is built from scratch, including the latest versions of the operating system and software packages. Now every new server arrives fresh instead of a clone of a configuration created months ago. \n Introducing cloud-init \n In this article, you will learn how to automate the process of building out a new NGINX Plus server using cloud-init. \n The beauty of cloud-init is that all public cloud providers already include it as a built-in feature. You can even build local VMs on your own hardware or laptop. Just put your configuration tasks into a simple text file and it can be used to build new VMs anywhere cloud-init is available. \n Automating NGINX Plus Installation \n Let's take a look at how cloud-init can automate the process of installing NGINX Plus on a Ubuntu server. Below is the \"simple text file\" (formatted as YAML) that describes what tasks need to be performed. Notice that we are not just replicating each command-line operation into a shell script. This is much better than that. The contents are more declarative in nature, where we describe our desired final state rather than providing the imperative steps to get there. Now let's walk through each section of this file to see how it works. \n #cloud-config\n\nwrite_files:\n - content: |\n -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\n MIIETDCCAzSgAwIBAgIRAN0W2fO6kAXvYOhjggkZ608wDQYJKoZIhvcNAQELBQAw\n Zj7Kh4dgUD+jOI5rJgn5DGm7inpiJf5eksH+scrOVTP+WuJHs8VzhH0UUqAwM3Tx\n <REDACTED>\n iIyDaR6Z9XvtFWiVyjfWv/R9hutbc7QLpbbcC/JIAmrUnskTlFu1Mz00p7Jis8f4\n 7X4xxTENEFzwPfrXIF/bxpg+X75IRb1aYOXpadxuUrckd7Rb46P4FPPxVzEH7TA7\n -----END CERTIFICATE-----\n path: /etc/ssl/nginx/nginx-repo.crt\n - content: |\n -----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\n MIIEvAIBADANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAASCBKYwggSiAgEAAoIBAQCtKV0irhiXnx4U\n uz1v2neP9ew857iFpZ9FyrsvYqrwaRLdxsBkrU8CgYBRYEknMdfl8OhTcvyYFSMV\n <REDACTED>\n PjQ5U2Kaf3gMia5v4nGkhyKPuvasyvEeupwkIGDvRDmc+/AVtQQbJSJa7O0X1fwE\n aIDBc9S5hiWeqIOK8489IA==\n -----END PRIVATE KEY-----\n path: /etc/ssl/nginx/nginx-repo.key\n\napt:\n conf: |\n Acquire::https::pkgs.nginx.com::Verify-Peer \"true\";\n Acquire::https::pkgs.nginx.com::Verify-Host \"true\";\n Acquire::https::pkgs.nginx.com::SslCert \"/etc/ssl/nginx/nginx-repo.crt\";\n Acquire::https::pkgs.nginx.com::SslKey \"/etc/ssl/nginx/nginx-repo.key\";\n \n sources:\n nginx:\n source: \"deb http://nginx.org/packages/mainline/ubuntu $RELEASE nginx\"\n keyid: 2FD21310B49F6B46\n nginx-plus:\n source: \"deb https://pkgs.nginx.com/plus/ubuntu $RELEASE nginx-plus\"\n keyid: 2FD21310B49F6B46\n app-protect:\n source: \"deb https://pkgs.nginx.com/app-protect/ubuntu $RELEASE nginx-plus\"\n keyid: 2FD21310B49F6B46\n app-protect-dos:\n source: \"deb https://pkgs.nginx.com/app-protect-dos/ubuntu $RELEASE nginx-plus\"\n keyid: 2FD21310B49F6B46\n security-updates:\n source: \"deb https://pkgs.nginx.com/app-protect-security-updates/ubuntu $RELEASE nginx-plus\"\n keyid: A5F6473795E778F4\n keyserver: https://cs.nginx.com/static/keys/app-protect-security-updates.key\n\npackages:\n# - nginx\n - nginx-plus\n# - nginx-plus-module-njs\n# - nginx-ha-keepalived\n# - app-protect\n\nruncmd:\n - systemctl enable --now nginx\n\nfinal_message: \"The system is finally up, after $UPTIME seconds\"\n \n The write_files section (Lines 3-21) \n The NGINX software repository requires mTLS client authentication. Two files are provided to customers to authenticate: nginx-repo.crt and nginx-repo.key. These two files need to be copied to the new server for software installation. The write_files section creates these files with the content included inline in the YAML file. Notice that each line of content needs to be indented to produce valid YAML. I use awk to indent each line like so: \n awk '{$1=\" \"$1}1' nginx-repo.crt \n Being able to create these files using cloud-init is nice because everything is in one YAML file. Of course, you will need to replace the content subsections with the content of your own nginx-repo.crt and nginx-repo.key files. \n The apt section (Lines 23-46) \n With Ubuntu Linux, the apt command is used to install software. To install NGINX Plus we configure apt with two things: \n \n The conf subsection -- Tells apt where the mTLS digital certificate files are that we created in the previous section. \n The sources subsection -- Adds the NGINX software repositories to apt. Each repository has a keyid that refers to a verification key in Ubuntu's keyserver. Notice that the \"security-updates\" keyid is not in Ubuntu's keyserver so a custom keyserver is provided. \n \n The packages section (Lines 48-53) \n Here is where we specify which software packages should be installed. In this case I only need NGINX Plus so I've commented out the others. In this section you can install any package available to Ubuntu that you need. \n The runcmd section (Lines 55-56) \n After install, we just need to run one command to start up NGINX and make sure it automatically starts when the server boots in the future. \n The final_message section (Line 58) \n The final_message is a string that is written to the /var/log/cloud-init-output.log file after the automated install. In this case, I use the $UPTIME variable to record how long it took for the installation process to complete. \n Using a cloud-init file when creating a new VM \n Now that we have a cloud-init file ready to go, let's go ahead and use it to configure a brand new VM. Here are some examples of providing your YAML file when launching a new VM instance: \n On AWS EC2 using the Web UI \n When using the Web UI to launch a new instance, click on Advanced Details at the bottom of the page. Scroll down until you see a section labeled, \"User data - optional.\" You can either paste your YAML into the box provided or click the \"Choose file\" to upload the file from your computer. \n \n On Google Cloud Platform (GCP) using the gcloud CLI \n In addition to a Web UI, cloud platforms also provide a command line interface for launching new VM instances. Here is an example using GCP's CLI: \n gcloud compute instances create mynginx --zone=us-central1-a --image-project=ubuntu-os-cloud --image-family=ubuntu-2204-lts --metadata-from-file user-data=plus.yaml \n Here the metadata-from-file parameter is used to pass our YAML file named \"plus.yaml\" \n On your laptop using multipass \n Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu, provide a tool named Canonical Multipass for running VMs on your Windows, Mac, or Linux laptop or desktop system. When launching a new instance with multipass, you can pass our YAML file like so: \n multipass launch -n mynginx --cloud-init plus.yaml \n Viewing the cloud-init-output log file \n While the cloud-init automated installation is in progress, output for each task is written to /var/log/cloud-init-output.log \n You can view this file after the new instance is booted to verify that each step has completed successfully. Here is a snippet of the end of this log file: \n Cloud-init v. 24.1.3-0ubuntu3 running 'modules:final' at Fri, 31 May 2024 02:24:41 +0000. Up 35.57 seconds.\nReading package lists...\nBuilding dependency tree...\nReading state information...\nThe following NEW packages will be installed:\n nginx-plus\n0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 51 not upgraded.\nNeed to get 3700 kB of archives.\nAfter this operation, 7378 kB of additional disk space will be used.\nGet:1 https://pkgs.nginx.com/plus/ubuntu noble/nginx-plus amd64 nginx-plus amd64 32-1~noble [3700 kB]\nFetched 3700 kB in 1s (2513 kB/s)\nSelecting previously unselected package nginx-plus.\n(Reading database ... 71839 files and directories currently installed.)\nPreparing to unpack .../nginx-plus_32-1~noble_amd64.deb ...\n----------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThank you for using NGINX!\n\nPlease find the documentation for NGINX Plus here:\n/usr/share/nginx/html/nginx-modules-reference.pdf\n\nNGINX Plus is proprietary software. EULA and License information:\n/usr/share/doc/nginx-plus/\n\nFor support information, please see:\nhttps://www.nginx.com/support/\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------\nUnpacking nginx-plus (32-1~noble) ...\nSetting up nginx-plus (32-1~noble) ...\nCreated symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/nginx.service → /usr/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service.\nProcessing triggers for man-db (2.12.0-4build2) ...\n\nRunning kernel seems to be up-to-date.\n\nNo services need to be restarted.\n\nNo containers need to be restarted.\n\nNo user sessions are running outdated binaries.\n\nNo VM guests are running outdated hypervisor (qemu) binaries on this host.\nSynchronizing state of nginx.service with SysV service script with /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install.\nExecuting: /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable nginx\nThe system is finally up, after 44.67 seconds \n By the final_message the automated install competed in 44.67 seconds. Much faster than if the administrator had to perform the same tasks manually! \n Conclusion \n There are other automation tools out there, like Ansible from Red Hat and Terraform from Hashicorp. These platforms come with a learning curve and require setup and configuration before they can be used. \n Using cloud-init to automate the build-out of new NGINX Plus servers offers the following advantages: \n \n Included with all public cloud compute offerings. Launching new VMs with cloud-init support comes by default. \n A declarative interface simplifies describing the configuration tasks that need to be automated. \n All instructions go into a single YAML text file that is easy to share across all your compute platforms. \n Instead of using a stale VM golden image, cloud-init does a fresh install and config every time you spin up a new VM. \n \n Hopefully this introduction to using cloud-init to build new NGINX Plus VM instances has been useful. Please feel free to leave any questions or feedback you may have in the comments below. ","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})@stringLength":"11609","kudosSumWeight":3,"repliesCount":4,"readOnly":false,"images":{"__typename":"AssociatedImageConnection","edges":[{"__typename":"AssociatedImageEdge","cursor":"MjUuM3wyLjF8b3wyNXxfTlZffDE","node":{"__ref":"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMzAxOTMtWFVKdUlP?revision=4\"}"}}],"totalCount":1,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}},"videos":{"__typename":"VideoConnection","edges":[],"totalCount":0,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}}},"Conversation:conversation:282649":{"__typename":"Conversation","id":"conversation:282649","topic":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","uid":282649},"lastPostingActivityTime":"2024-03-27T03:57:02.598-07:00","solved":false},"User:user:106220":{"__typename":"User","uid":106220,"login":"Joe_Pruitt","registrationData":{"__typename":"RegistrationData","status":null},"deleted":false,"avatar":{"__typename":"UserAvatar","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/dS0xMDYyMjAtUU1TTFdB?image-coordinates=0%2C0%2C1000%2C1000"},"id":"user:106220"},"TkbTopicMessage:message:282649":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","subject":"Controlling a Pool Members Ratio and Priority Group with iControl","conversation":{"__ref":"Conversation:conversation:282649"},"id":"message:282649","revisionNum":1,"uid":282649,"depth":0,"board":{"__ref":"Tkb:board:TechnicalArticles"},"author":{"__ref":"User:user:106220"},"teaser@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":"","introduction":"","metrics":{"__typename":"MessageMetrics","views":29076},"postTime":"2012-02-17T10:20:51.000-08:00","lastPublishTime":"2012-02-17T10:20:51.000-08:00","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":" A Little Background A question came in through the iControl forums about controlling a pool members ratio and priority programmatically. The issue really involves how the API’s use multi-dimensional arrays but I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk about ratio and priority groups for those that don’t understand how they work. In the first part of this article, I’ll talk a little about what pool members are and how their ratio and priorities apply to how traffic is assigned to them in a load balancing setup. The details in this article were based on BIG-IP version 11.1, but the concepts can apply to other previous versions as well. Load Balancing In it’s very basic form, a load balancing setup involves a virtual ip address (referred to as a VIP) that virtualized a set of backend servers. The idea is that if your application gets very popular, you don’t want to have to rely on a single server to handle the traffic. A VIP contains an object called a “pool” which is essentially a collection of servers that it can distribute traffic to. The method of distributing traffic is referred to as a “Load Balancing Method”. You may have heard the term “Round Robin” before. In this method, connections are passed one at a time from server to server. In most cases though, this is not the best method due to characteristics of the application you are serving. Here are a list of the available load balancing methods in BIG-IP version 11.1. Load Balancing Methods in BIG-IP version 11.1 Round Robin: Specifies that the system passes each new connection request to the next server in line, eventually distributing connections evenly across the array of machines being load balanced. This method works well in most configurations, especially if the equipment that you are load balancing is roughly equal in processing speed and memory. Ratio (member): Specifies that the number of connections that each machine receives over time is proportionate to a ratio weight you define for each machine within the pool. Least Connections (member): Specifies that the system passes a new connection to the node that has the least number of current connections in the pool. This method works best in environments where the servers or other equipment you are load balancing have similar capabilities. This is a dynamic load balancing method, distributing connections based on various aspects of real-time server performance analysis, such as the current number of connections per node or the fastest node response time. Observed (member): Specifies that the system ranks nodes based on the number of connections. Nodes that have a better balance of fewest connections receive a greater proportion of the connections. This method differs from Least Connections (member), in that the Least Connections method measures connections only at the moment of load balancing, while the Observed method tracks the number of Layer 4 connections to each node over time and creates a ratio for load balancing. This dynamic load balancing method works well in any environment, but may be particularly useful in environments where node performance varies significantly. Predictive (member): Uses the ranking method used by the Observed (member) methods, except that the system analyzes the trend of the ranking over time, determining whether a node's performance is improving or declining. The nodes in the pool with better performance rankings that are currently improving, rather than declining, receive a higher proportion of the connections. This dynamic load balancing method works well in any environment. Ratio (node): Specifies that the number of connections that each machine receives over time is proportionate to a ratio weight you define for each machine across all pools of which the server is a member. Least Connections (node): Specifies that the system passes a new connection to the node that has the least number of current connections out of all pools of which a node is a member. This method works best in environments where the servers or other equipment you are load balancing have similar capabilities. This is a dynamic load balancing method, distributing connections based on various aspects of real-time server performance analysis, such as the number of current connections per node, or the fastest node response time. Fastest (node): Specifies that the system passes a new connection based on the fastest response of all pools of which a server is a member. This method might be particularly useful in environments where nodes are distributed across different logical networks. Observed (node): Specifies that the system ranks nodes based on the number of connections. Nodes that have a better balance of fewest connections receive a greater proportion of the connections. This method differs from Least Connections (node), in that the Least Connections method measures connections only at the moment of load balancing, while the Observed method tracks the number of Layer 4 connections to each node over time and creates a ratio for load balancing. This dynamic load balancing method works well in any environment, but may be particularly useful in environments where node performance varies significantly. Predictive (node): Uses the ranking method used by the Observed (member) methods, except that the system analyzes the trend of the ranking over time, determining whether a node's performance is improving or declining. The nodes in the pool with better performance rankings that are currently improving, rather than declining, receive a higher proportion of the connections. This dynamic load balancing method works well in any environment. Dynamic Ratio (node) : This method is similar to Ratio (node) mode, except that weights are based on continuous monitoring of the servers and are therefore continually changing. This is a dynamic load balancing method, distributing connections based on various aspects of real-time server performance analysis, such as the number of current connections per node or the fastest node response time. Fastest (application): Passes a new connection based on the fastest response of all currently active nodes in a pool. This method might be particularly useful in environments where nodes are distributed across different logical networks. Least Sessions: Specifies that the system passes a new connection to the node that has the least number of current sessions. This method works best in environments where the servers or other equipment you are load balancing have similar capabilities. This is a dynamic load balancing method, distributing connections based on various aspects of real-time server performance analysis, such as the number of current sessions. Dynamic Ratio (member): This method is similar to Ratio (node) mode, except that weights are based on continuous monitoring of the servers and are therefore continually changing. This is a dynamic load balancing method, distributing connections based on various aspects of real-time server performance analysis, such as the number of current connections per node or the fastest node response time. L3 Address: This method functions in the same way as the Least Connections methods. We are deprecating it, so you should not use it. Weighted Least Connections (member): Specifies that the system uses the value you specify in Connection Limit to establish a proportional algorithm for each pool member. The system bases the load balancing decision on that proportion and the number of current connections to that pool member. For example,member_a has 20 connections and its connection limit is 100, so it is at 20% of capacity. Similarly, member_b has 20 connections and its connection limit is 200, so it is at 10% of capacity. In this case, the system select selects member_b. This algorithm requires all pool members to have a non-zero connection limit specified. Weighted Least Connections (node): Specifies that the system uses the value you specify in the node's Connection Limitand the number of current connections to a node to establish a proportional algorithm. This algorithm requires all nodes used by pool members to have a non-zero connection limit specified. Ratios The ratio is used by the ratio-related load balancing methods to load balance connections. The ratio specifies the ratio weight to assign to the pool member. Valid values range from 1 through 100. The default is 1, which means that each pool member has an equal ratio proportion. So, if you have server1 a with a ratio value of “10” and server2 with a ratio value of “1”, server1 will get served 10 connections for every one that server2 receives. This can be useful when you have different classes of servers with different performance capabilities. Priority Group The priority group is a number that groups pool members together. The default is 0, meaning that the member has no priority. To specify a priority, you must activate priority group usage when you create a new pool or when adding or removing pool members. When activated, the system load balances traffic according to the priority group number assigned to the pool member. The higher the number, the higher the priority, so a member with a priority of 3 has higher priority than a member with a priority of 1. The easiest way to think of priority groups is as if you are creating mini-pools of servers within a single pool. You put members A, B, and C in to priority group 5 and members D, E, and F in priority group 1. Members A, B, and C will be served traffic according to their ratios (assuming you have ratio loadbalancing configured). If all those servers have reached their thresholds, then traffic will be distributed to servers D, E, and F in priority group 1. he default setting for priority group activation is Disabled. Once you enable this setting, you can specify pool member priority when you create a new pool or on a pool member's properties screen. The system treats same-priority pool members as a group. To enable priority group activation in the admin GUI, select Less than from the list, and in the Available Member(s) box, type a number from 0 to 65535 that represents the minimum number of members that must be available in one priority group before the system directs traffic to members in a lower priority group. When a sufficient number of members become available in the higher priority group, the system again directs traffic to the higher priority group. Implementing in Code The two methods to retrieve the priority and ratio values are very similar. They both take two parameters: a list of pools to query, and a 2-D array of members (a list for each pool member passed in). long [] [] get_member_priority( in String [] pool_names, in Common__AddressPort [] [] members ); long [] [] get_member_ratio( in String [] pool_names, in Common__AddressPort [] [] members ); \n \n\n \n\n The following PowerShell function (utilizing the iControl PowerShell Library), takes as input a pool and a single member. It then make a call to query the ratio and priority for the specific member and writes it to the console. \n\n \n\n \n function Get-PoolMemberDetails() { param( $Pool = $null, $Member = $null ); $AddrPort = Parse-AddressPort $Member; $RatioAofA = (Get-F5.iControl).LocalLBPool.get_member_ratio( @($Pool), @( @($AddrPort) ) ); $PriorityAofA = (Get-F5.iControl).LocalLBPool.get_member_priority( @($Pool), @( @($AddrPort) ) ); $ratio = $RatioAofA[0][0]; $priority = $PriorityAofA[0][0]; \"Pool '$Pool' member '$Member' ratio '$ratio' priority '$priority'\"; } \n\n \n\n Setting the values with the set_member_priority and set_member_ratio methods take the same first two parameters as their associated get_* methods, but add a third parameter for the priorities and ratios for the pool members. \n\n set_member_priority( in String [] pool_names, in Common::AddressPort [] [] members, in long [] [] priorities ); set_member_ratio( in String [] pool_names, in Common::AddressPort [] [] members, in long [] [] ratios ); \n\n The following Powershell function takes as input the Pool and Member with optional values for the Ratio and Priority. If either of those are set, the function will call the appropriate iControl methods to set their values. \n\n \n function Set-PoolMemberDetails() { param( $Pool = $null, $Member = $null, $Ratio = $null, $Priority = $null ); $AddrPort = Parse-AddressPort $Member; if ( $null -ne $Ratio ) { (Get-F5.iControl).LocalLBPool.set_member_ratio( @($Pool), @( @($AddrPort) ), @($Ratio) ); } if ( $null -ne $Priority ) { (Get-F5.iControl).LocalLBPool.set_member_priority( @($Pool), @( @($AddrPort) ), @($Priority) ); } } \n \n\n \n\n In case you were wondering how to create the Common::AddressPort structure for the $AddrPort variables in the above examples, here’s a helper function I wrote to allocate the object and fill in it’s properties. \n\n \n\n \n function Parse-AddressPort() { param($Value); $tokens = $Value.Split(\":\"); $r = New-Object iControl.CommonAddressPort; $r.address = $tokens[0]; $r.port = $tokens[1]; $r; } \n \n\n Download The Source \n\n The full source for this example can be found in the iControl CodeShare under PowerShell PoolMember Ratio and Priority. ","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})@stringLength":"13857","kudosSumWeight":0,"repliesCount":3,"readOnly":false,"images":{"__typename":"AssociatedImageConnection","edges":[],"totalCount":0,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}},"videos":{"__typename":"VideoConnection","edges":[],"totalCount":0,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}}},"Conversation:conversation:280272":{"__typename":"Conversation","id":"conversation:280272","topic":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","uid":280272},"lastPostingActivityTime":"2023-06-03T03:05:48.217-07:00","solved":false},"User:user:171720":{"__typename":"User","uid":171720,"login":"Lori_MacVittie","registrationData":{"__typename":"RegistrationData","status":null},"deleted":false,"avatar":{"__typename":"UserAvatar","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/m_assets/avatars/default/avatar-10.svg?time=0"},"id":"user:171720"},"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0yODAyNzItMTQxMDJpQUFBRUNDRjIwQUMyNTg0Mg?revision=1\"}":{"__typename":"AssociatedImage","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0yODAyNzItMTQxMDJpQUFBRUNDRjIwQUMyNTg0Mg?revision=1","title":"0151T000003d8YHQAY.gif","associationType":"BODY","width":334,"height":85,"altText":null},"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0yODAyNzItMTU3NzBpQUE1NTZGMzU5M0E1NkRFOQ?revision=1\"}":{"__typename":"AssociatedImage","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0yODAyNzItMTU3NzBpQUE1NTZGMzU5M0E1NkRFOQ?revision=1","title":"0151T000003d8YGQAY.png","associationType":"BODY","width":185,"height":379,"altText":null},"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0yODAyNzItOTExOWlCNkExRjEyOUE5QzU0QzA1?revision=1\"}":{"__typename":"AssociatedImage","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0yODAyNzItOTExOWlCNkExRjEyOUE5QzU0QzA1?revision=1","title":"0151T000003d8YFQAY.png","associationType":"BODY","width":531,"height":398,"altText":null},"TkbTopicMessage:message:280272":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","subject":"Devops Proverb: Process Practice Makes Perfect","conversation":{"__ref":"Conversation:conversation:280272"},"id":"message:280272","revisionNum":1,"uid":280272,"depth":0,"board":{"__ref":"Tkb:board:TechnicalArticles"},"author":{"__ref":"User:user:171720"},"teaser@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":"","introduction":"","metrics":{"__typename":"MessageMetrics","views":286},"postTime":"2012-07-30T07:13:00.000-07:00","lastPublishTime":"2012-07-30T07:13:00.000-07:00","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":" #devops Tools for automating – and optimizing – processes are a must-have for enabling continuous delivery of application deployments Some idioms are cross-cultural and cross-temporal. They transcend cultures and time, remaining relevant no matter where or when they are spoken. These idioms are often referred to as proverbs, which carries with it a sense of enduring wisdom. One such idiom, “practice makes perfect”, can be found in just about every culture in some form. In Chinese, for example, the idiom is apparently properly read as “familiarity through doing creates high proficiency”, i.e. practice makes perfect. This is a central tenet of devops, particularly where optimization of operational processes is concerned. The more often you execute a process, the more likely you are to get better at it and discover what activities (steps) within that process may need tweaking or changes or improvements. Ergo, optimization. This tenet grows out of the agile methodology adopted by devops: application release cycles should be nearly continuous, with both developers and operations iterating over the same process – develop, test, deploy – with a high level of frequency. Eventually (one hopes) we achieve process perfection – or at least what we might call process perfection: repeatable, consistent deployment success. It is implied that in order to achieve this many processes will be automated, once we have discovered and defined them in such a way as to enable them to be automated. But how does one automate a process such as an application release cycle? Business Process Management (BPM) works well for automating business workflows; such systems include adapters and plug-ins that allow communication between systems as well as people. But these systems are not designed for operations; there are no web servers or databases or Load balancer adapters for even the most widely adopted BPM systems. One such solution can be found in Electric Cloud with its recently announced ElectricDeploy. Process Automation for Operations ElectricDeploy is built upon a more well known product from Electric Cloud (well, more well-known in developer circles, at least) known as ElectricCommander, a build-test-deploy application deployment system. Its interface presents applications in terms of tiers – but extends beyond the traditional three-tiers associated with development to include infrastructure services such as – you guessed it – load balancers (yes, including BIG-IP) and virtual infrastructure. The view enables operators to create the tiers appropriate to applications and then orchestrate deployment processes through fairly predictable phases – test, QA, pre-production and production. What’s hawesome about the tools is the ability to control the process – to rollback, to restore, and even debug. The debugging capabilities enable operators to stop at specified tasks in order to examine output from systems, check log files, etc..to ensure the process is executing properly. While it’s not able to perform “step into” debugging (stepping into the configuration of the load balancer, for example, and manually executing line by line changes) it can perform what developers know as “step over” debugging, which means you can step through a process at the highest layer and pause at break points, but you can’t yet dive into the actual task. Still, the ability to pause an executing process and examine output, as well as rollback or restore specific process versions (yes, it versions the processes as well, just as you’d expect) would certainly be a boon to operations in the quest to adopt tools and methodologies from development that can aid them in improving time and consistency of deployments. The tool also enables operations to determine what is failure during a deployment. For example, you may want to stop and rollback the deployment when a server fails to launch if your deployment only comprises 2 or 3 servers, but when it comprises 1000s it may be acceptable that a few fail to launch. Success and failure of individual tasks as well as the overall process are defined by the organization and allow for flexibility. This is more than just automation, it’s managed automation; it’s agile in action; it’s focusing on the processes, not the plumbing. MANUAL still RULES Electric Cloud recently (June 2012) conducted a survey on the “state of application deployments today” and found some not unexpected but still frustrating results including that 75% of application deployments are still performed manually or with little to no automation. While automation may not be the goal of devops, but it is a tool enabling operations to achieve its goals and thus it should be more broadly considered as standard operating procedure to automate as much of the deployment process as possible. This is particularly true when operations fully adopts not only the premise of devops but the conclusion resulting from its agile roots. Tighter, faster, more frequent release cycles necessarily puts an additional burden on operations to execute the same processes over and over again. Trying to manually accomplish this may be setting operations up for failure and leave operations focused more on simply going through the motions and getting the application into production successfully than on streamlining and optimizing the processes they are executing. Electric Cloud’s ElectricDeploy is one of the ways in which process optimization can be achieved, and justifies its purchase by operations by promising to enable better control over application deployment processes across development and infrastructure. Devops is a Verb 1024 Words: The Devops Butterfly Effect Devops is Not All About Automation Application Security is a Stack Capacity in the Cloud: Concurrency versus Connections Ecosystems are Always in Flux The Pythagorean Theorem of Operational Risk ","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})@stringLength":"6042","kudosSumWeight":0,"repliesCount":1,"readOnly":false,"images":{"__typename":"AssociatedImageConnection","edges":[{"__typename":"AssociatedImageEdge","cursor":"MjUuM3wyLjF8b3wyNXxfTlZffDE","node":{"__ref":"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0yODAyNzItMTQxMDJpQUFBRUNDRjIwQUMyNTg0Mg?revision=1\"}"}},{"__typename":"AssociatedImageEdge","cursor":"MjUuM3wyLjF8b3wyNXxfTlZffDI","node":{"__ref":"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0yODAyNzItMTU3NzBpQUE1NTZGMzU5M0E1NkRFOQ?revision=1\"}"}},{"__typename":"AssociatedImageEdge","cursor":"MjUuM3wyLjF8b3wyNXxfTlZffDM","node":{"__ref":"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0yODAyNzItOTExOWlCNkExRjEyOUE5QzU0QzA1?revision=1\"}"}}],"totalCount":3,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}},"videos":{"__typename":"VideoConnection","edges":[],"totalCount":0,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}}},"Conversation:conversation:305052":{"__typename":"Conversation","id":"conversation:305052","topic":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","uid":305052},"lastPostingActivityTime":"2023-04-27T15:39:02.084-07:00","solved":false},"User:user:194786":{"__typename":"User","uid":194786,"login":"Janibasha","registrationData":{"__typename":"RegistrationData","status":null},"deleted":false,"avatar":{"__typename":"UserAvatar","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/dS0xOTQ3ODYtMjA5NDJpMEI1Q0JDRDNGRkQ2MUM0Mw"},"id":"user:194786"},"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMDUwNTItMjA5NTlpNjFERTUzRkI1NjQ0NTQ4Qg?revision=8\"}":{"__typename":"AssociatedImage","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMDUwNTItMjA5NTlpNjFERTUzRkI1NjQ0NTQ4Qg?revision=8","title":"gustavo-espindola-7BG3z3N6zAI-unsplash.jpg","associationType":"COVER","width":875,"height":875,"altText":""},"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMDUwNTItMjA4MjlpOUJFOURBRTUzRUNGRjcyQg?revision=8\"}":{"__typename":"AssociatedImage","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMDUwNTItMjA4MjlpOUJFOURBRTUzRUNGRjcyQg?revision=8","title":"csd-data-flow-new.png","associationType":"BODY","width":1261,"height":597,"altText":null},"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMDUwNTItMjA4MzBpMTg2M0U1MjQ3MTY5REJGQw?revision=8\"}":{"__typename":"AssociatedImage","url":"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMDUwNTItMjA4MzBpMTg2M0U1MjQ3MTY5REJGQw?revision=8","title":"Client - Side - Defense.jpeg","associationType":"BODY","width":1640,"height":900,"altText":null},"TkbTopicMessage:message:305052":{"__typename":"TkbTopicMessage","subject":"Automation of F5 Distributed Cloud Platform Client-Side Defense feature - Part I","conversation":{"__ref":"Conversation:conversation:305052"},"id":"message:305052","revisionNum":8,"uid":305052,"depth":0,"board":{"__ref":"Tkb:board:TechnicalArticles"},"author":{"__ref":"User:user:194786"},"teaser@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":"","introduction":"","metrics":{"__typename":"MessageMetrics","views":1336},"postTime":"2022-12-05T05:00:00.034-08:00","lastPublishTime":"2023-04-27T15:39:02.084-07:00","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})":" \n Objective: \n 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. \n 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. \n 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 \n Overview: \n Client-Side Defense (CSD) feature provides a web application protection solution against Magecart style and similar malicious JavaScript attacks. This solution supports below features: \n \n 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. \n Alerting: CSD generates timely alerts on the behavior of malicious scripts, provided by a continuously improving Analysis Engine. \n \n \n Mitigation: CSD detects threats in real-time and provides enforcement with one-click mitigation. \n \n \n \n Automation Design: \n 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. \n 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. \n 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. \n \n \n 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. \n \n Code is available here. \n \n Deployment steps: \n \n Security users can simply clone repo, update variables.tf as per their infra and run workflow which will bring entire infrastructure in few mins. \n 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. \n \n Conclusion: \n 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. \n \n For further information check the links below: \n \n F5 Distributed Cloud Platform (Link) \n F5 Distributed Cloud Client-Side Defense Overview (Link) \n F5 Distributed Cloud Client-Side Defense Docs (Link) \n \n ","body@stripHtml({\"removeProcessingText\":true,\"removeSpoilerMarkup\":true,\"removeTocMarkup\":true,\"truncateLength\":-1})@stringLength":"3520","kudosSumWeight":6,"repliesCount":0,"readOnly":false,"images":{"__typename":"AssociatedImageConnection","edges":[{"__typename":"AssociatedImageEdge","cursor":"MjUuM3wyLjF8b3wyNXxfTlZffDE","node":{"__ref":"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMDUwNTItMjA5NTlpNjFERTUzRkI1NjQ0NTQ4Qg?revision=8\"}"}},{"__typename":"AssociatedImageEdge","cursor":"MjUuM3wyLjF8b3wyNXxfTlZffDI","node":{"__ref":"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMDUwNTItMjA4MjlpOUJFOURBRTUzRUNGRjcyQg?revision=8\"}"}},{"__typename":"AssociatedImageEdge","cursor":"MjUuM3wyLjF8b3wyNXxfTlZffDM","node":{"__ref":"AssociatedImage:{\"url\":\"https://community.f5.com/t5/s/zihoc95639/images/bS0zMDUwNTItMjA4MzBpMTg2M0U1MjQ3MTY5REJGQw?revision=8\"}"}}],"totalCount":3,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}},"videos":{"__typename":"VideoConnection","edges":[],"totalCount":0,"pageInfo":{"__typename":"PageInfo","hasNextPage":false,"endCursor":null,"hasPreviousPage":false,"startCursor":null}}},"CachedAsset:text:en_US-components/community/Navbar-1744046271000":{"__typename":"CachedAsset","id":"text:en_US-components/community/Navbar-1744046271000","value":{"community":"Community Home","inbox":"Inbox","manageContent":"Manage Content","tos":"Terms of Service","forgotPassword":"Forgot Password","themeEditor":"Theme Editor","edit":"Edit Navigation Bar","skipContent":"Skip to content","migrated-link-9":"Groups","migrated-link-7":"Technical Articles","migrated-link-8":"DevCentral News","migrated-link-1":"Technical Forum","migrated-link-10":"Community Groups","migrated-link-2":"Water Cooler","migrated-link-11":"F5 Groups","Common-external-link":"How Do I...?","migrated-link-0":"Forums","article-series":"Article Series","migrated-link-5":"Community Articles","migrated-link-6":"Articles","security-insights":"Security Insights","migrated-link-3":"CrowdSRC","migrated-link-4":"CodeShare","migrated-link-12":"Events","migrated-link-13":"Suggestions"},"localOverride":false},"CachedAsset:text:en_US-components/community/NavbarHamburgerDropdown-1744046271000":{"__typename":"CachedAsset","id":"text:en_US-components/community/NavbarHamburgerDropdown-1744046271000","value":{"hamburgerLabel":"Side Menu"},"localOverride":false},"CachedAsset:text:en_US-components/community/BrandLogo-1744046271000":{"__typename":"CachedAsset","id":"text:en_US-components/community/BrandLogo-1744046271000","value":{"logoAlt":"Khoros","themeLogoAlt":"Brand Logo"},"localOverride":false},"CachedAsset:text:en_US-components/community/NavbarTextLinks-1744046271000":{"__typename":"CachedAsset","id":"text:en_US-components/community/NavbarTextLinks-1744046271000","value":{"more":"More"},"localOverride":false},"CachedAsset:text:en_US-components/authentication/AuthenticationLink-1744046271000":{"__typename":"CachedAsset","id":"text:en_US-components/authentication/AuthenticationLink-1744046271000","value":{"title.login":"Sign In","title.registration":"Register","title.forgotPassword":"Forgot Password","title.multiAuthLogin":"Sign In"},"localOverride":false},"CachedAsset:text:en_US-components/nodes/NodeLink-1744046271000":{"__typename":"CachedAsset","id":"text:en_US-components/nodes/NodeLink-1744046271000","value":{"place":"Place {name}"},"localOverride":false},"CachedAsset:text:en_US-components/tags/TagSubscriptionAction-1744046271000":{"__typename":"CachedAsset","id":"text:en_US-components/tags/TagSubscriptionAction-1744046271000","value":{"success.follow.title":"Following Tag","success.unfollow.title":"Unfollowed Tag","success.follow.message.followAcrossCommunity":"You will be notified when this tag is used anywhere across the community","success.unfollowtag.message":"You will no longer be notified when this tag is used anywhere in this place","success.unfollowtagAcrossCommunity.message":"You will no longer be notified when this tag is used anywhere across the community","unexpected.error.title":"Error - Action Failed","unexpected.error.message":"An unidentified problem occurred during the action you took. 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