Manual Chapter : Tools for Geo-Redundancy

Applies To:

  • BIG-IP LTM

    17.5.1, 17.5.0, 17.1.2, 17.1.1, 17.1.0, 17.0.0, 16.1.1, 16.1.0, 16.0.1, 16.0.0, 15.0.1

Updated Date: 07/07/2026

Tools for Geo-Redundancy

Access the following tools from the BIG-IP CLI:

  • bigstart: For control and status check on the daemons/process (TMM, Kafka, ZooKeeper, MirrorMaker).
  • diadb: To display and delete Diameter persistence entries.

gepdb: To display the status of Geo-redundancy setup, enforce manual reload, and display Geo-Redundancy iRule tables.

Usage: geodb [options]
-r, --reload
      manually trigger a georedundancy reload
      this device will become reload_receiving
-s, --status    output a single word status
    e.g. "connected"
-i, --irules    lists all entries in iRule session table in raw format
-c, --count     show persistance record count
-w, --watchdog  show watchdog monitor status
    e.g. "alive" or "expired"

Possible geodb states

  • unset/offiline: Geo-redundancy is not initialized or not enabled
  • connected: In sync with remote site
  • reload_receiving: Waiting for reload data from remote site
  • reload_sending: Sending reload data to remote site
  • standalone: Reload timeout has expired, running standalone

Possible geodb watchdog output

  • unset: Geo-redundancy is not initialized or not enabled
  • alive: Received watchdog keep alive from remote site within allocated watchdog period
  • expired: Watchdog timeout expired

Kafka includes a number of tools for maintenance and administration of a Kafka cluster as part of the open source project. Under normal circumstances, these tools are not required, but can be useful for troubleshooting as a last resort.

Important: Modifying Kafka configs generated by iAppLX is not recommended.

By default, JAVA_HOME is not configured on a BIG-IP; set it before using any of the Kafka tools.

Topic and consumer group are configured in the Geo-Redundancy profile.

Note: Each BIG-IP maintains its own Kafka cluster, so output will likely be different on each BIG-IP.

The scripts below are located in /usr/bin/kafka/bin/. For more information: https://kafka.apache.org/quickstart.

  • Set JAVA_HOME:

    # export JAVA_HOME="/usr/java/java-1.7.0-openjdk"

  • List created topics:

    # /usr/bin/kafka/bin/kafka-topics.sh --list --zookeeper localhost:2181

  • Check topic status:

    # /usr/bin/kafka/bin/kafka-topics.sh --describe --zookeeper localhost:2181 --topic <topic>

  • Checking consumers offset:

    # /usr/bin/kafka/bin/kafka-consumer-groups.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9192 --group <group> --describe

  • Producing test Kafka records:

    # /usr/bin/kafka/bin/kafka-console-producer.sh --broker-list localhost:9192 --topic <topic>

  • Consuming Kafka records:

    # /usr/bin/kafka/bin/kafka-console-consumer.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9192 --topic <topic>