Manual Chapter :
Administrative Partitions
Applies To:
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BIG-IP APM
- 17.1.2, 17.1.1, 17.1.0, 17.0.0
BIG-IP Link Controller
- 17.1.2, 17.1.1, 17.1.0, 17.0.0
BIG-IP Analytics
- 17.1.2, 17.1.1, 17.1.0, 17.0.0
BIG-IP LTM
- 17.1.2, 17.1.1, 17.1.0, 17.0.0
BIG-IP AFM
- 17.1.2, 17.1.1, 17.1.0, 17.0.0
BIG-IP PEM
- 17.1.2, 17.1.1, 17.1.0, 17.0.0
BIG-IP DNS
- 17.1.2, 17.1.1, 17.1.0, 17.0.0
BIG-IP ASM
- 17.1.2, 17.1.1, 17.1.0, 17.0.0
Administrative Partitions
What is an administrative partition?
An
administrative partition
is a logical container that you create, containing a
defined set of BIG-IP system objects. If you have the Administrator or User
Manager user role assigned to your BIG-IP system user account, you can create administrative
partitions to control other users’ access to BIG-IP objects. More specifically, when a specific
set of objects resides in a partition, you can give certain users the authority to view and
manage the objects in that partition only, rather than to all objects on the BIG-IP system. This
gives a finer granularity of administrative control. For example, a user that is assigned access
to partition A
with the role of Operator on that partition can mark nodes
up or down, but only in that partition. You assign user access to partitions when you configure
BIG-IP system user accounts.The following illustration shows an example of user objects within partitions on the BIG-IP system.
Sample administrative partitions on the BIG-IP system
For every administrative partition on the BIG-IP system, the system creates an equivalent
high-level folder with an equivalent name.
Creating an administrative partition
You perform this task to create an administrative partition. An
administrative partition
creates an access control boundary for users and applications.- On the Main tab, expandSystemand clickUsers.The Users List screen opens.
- On the menu bar, clickPartition List.
- ClickCreate.The New Partition screen opens.
- In thePartition Namefield, type a unique name for the partition.An example of a partition name isSpanned_VIP.
- Type a description of the partition in theDescriptionfield.This field is optional.
- For theDevice Groupsetting, choose an action:ActionResultRetain the default value.Choose this option if you want the folder corresponding to this partition to inherit the value of the device group attribute from folderroot.Clear the check box and select the name of a device group.Choose this option if you do not want the folder corresponding to this partition to inherit the value of the device group attribute from folderroot.
- For theTraffic Groupsetting, choose an action:ActionResultRetain the default value.Choose this option if you want the folder corresponding to this partition to inherit the value of the traffic group attribute from folderroot.Clear the check box and select the name of a traffic group.Choose this option if you do not want the folder corresponding to this partition to inherit the value of the traffic group attribute from folderroot.
- ClickFinished.
The new partition appears in the partition list.
Relationship of partitions to user accounts
Partitions have a special relationship to user accounts. With respect to partitions and user
accounts, you can:
- Assign partition access to user accounts
- You can configure a user account to grant the user access to one or more partitions, and you can assign a different user role to a user for each partition. Moreover, you can grant an individual user access to all partitions instead of to specific partitions only. Note that assigning partition access to a user does not necessarily give the user full access to all objects in the partition; the user role assigned to the user determines the type of access that the user has to each type of object in the partition.
- Create user accounts as partitioned objects
- Like other types of objects on the system, user account objects also reside in partitions. Placing user account objects into partitions controls other users’ administrative access to those user accounts. Also, like other object types, a BIG-IP system user account cannot reside in more than one partition simultaneously. When you first install the BIG-IP system, every existing user account (rootandadmin) resides in partitionCommon.The partition in which a user account object resides does not affect the partition or partitions to which that user is granted access to manage other BIG-IP objects.
About partition Common
During BIG-IP system installation, the system automatically creates a
partition named
Common
. At a minimum, this partition contains all of the
BIG-IP objects that the system creates as part of the installation process. Until you create other partitions on the system, all objects that you or other users create or
manage automatically reside in partition Common
.With respect to permissions, all users on the system except those with a user role of No Access
have read access to objects in partition
Common
. When a user displays a
list of a particular type of configuration object, the system displays not only the objects of
that type within the user's current partition, but also the same type of object in
Common
. For example, if a user lists all virtual servers within the
user's current partition (such as partition A
), the list also shows the
virtual servers in Common
. In this case, unless the user has write access
to Common
, the virtual servers in Common
are
read-only for that user.Some users, such as those with the user role of Administrator, can also create, update, and
delete objects in partition
Common
. No user can delete partition
Common
itself.About the current partition
The
current partition
is the specific partition to which the system is currently set for a logged-in user.A user who has been granted access to one or more partitions, as well as all partitions, can
actively select the current partition, that is, the specific partition he or she wants to view or
manage. For example:
- If userjsmithhas access to multiple partitions on the system, then before creating or managing any object on the BIG-IP system, she must select the partition that she wants to be the current partition. After setting the current partition, any object that she creates resides in that partition, and she can modify or delete only the objects that reside in that partition until she sets the current partition to a different partition. Also, regardless of the current partition that jsmith selects, she also has read access to objects in partitionCommon.
- Conversely, if userrjoneshas access to partitionAonly, then any object that he creates while logged in to the BIG-IP system resides in partitionA. Although he can view objects in partitionCommon, he cannot selectCommonas his current partition because he has read access only. For userrjones, partitionAis automatically his current partition when he logs in to the system, and he cannot change the current partition to create objects in another partition.
Setting the current partition
Before you perform this task, confirm that your user account grants you permission
to access more than one partition on the BIG-IP system.
You perform this task to change the current administrative partition on the
BIG-IP system. You change the partition when you want to create or
manage BIG-IP configuration objects in a different partition than the current partition.
For example, if the current partition is set to
Common
, but you
have access to partition A
and want to create a load balancing
pool and virtual server in that partition, you must change the current partition to
partition A
before creating those objects. - Access the BIG-IP Configuration utility.
- Find thePartitionlist in the upper right corner of the BIG-IP Configuration utility screen, to the left of theLog outbutton.
- From thePartitionlist, select the partition in which you want to create or manage objects.
After you perform this task, any configuration objects that you create or manage
reside in the selected partition. Any objects that you can view reside in the selected
partition or partition
Common
. Also, each screen of the BIG-IP
Configuration utility displays the role currently assigned to the user, based on the
current partition.Object referencing between partitions
Certain BIG-IP system objects, such as virtual servers, can reference
other objects. Examples of objects that a virtual server can reference are pools, profiles, and
iRules®. On the BIG-IP system, there are rules for object referencing with respect to the
administrative partitions in which those objects reside.
Valid object referencing
The rules for valid object referencing are:
- An object and the object that it references can reside in the same partition.
- An object can reside in a user-created partition, such as partitionA, while the object it references resides in partitionCommon.
- An iRule can reference any object, regardless of the partition in which the referenced object resides. For example, an iRule that resides in partitionAcan contain a pool statement that specifies a pool residing in partitionB. Neither object is required to reside inCommon.
Invalid object referencing
Object referencing is restricted in these ways:
- An object cannot reside in partitionCommon, while the object that it references resides in a different partition. For example, you cannot have a virtual server residing inCommonwhile the pool that the virtual server references resides in partitionA.
- An object cannot reside in one user-created partition, while the object that it references resides in another user-created partition. For example, you cannot have a virtual server residing inAwhile the pool that the virtual server references resides in partitionB.
