Manual Chapter : Managing a BIG-IQ System

Applies To:

  • BIG-IQ Centralized Management

    7.0.0

Updated Date: 07/07/2026

Managing a BIG-IQ System

F5 BIG-IQ Centralized Management includes navigation, search tools, and a customizable user interface to help you complete your tasks efficiently and find objects easily.

  • Product documentation, F5 modules for Ansible, and online help

    To access BIG-IP, API, Ansible documentation, and F5 modules for Ansible, click the book icon in the upper-right corner of the screen. To view the context-sensitive online help, click the question mark in the upper-right corner.

  • Customized log in screen

    To customize your log in screen for users (for example, if you want to provide special guidance or make sure all users see a certain message), you can navigate to System > THIS DEVICE > General Properties, click the Edit button and type your message (up to 8,192 characters) in the Custom Login Messagefield.

  • Finder Menu

    To quickly locate a particular menu item, click the grid icon in the left corner of the screen and type a term in the field. This search is a simple text search. BIG-IQ displays links to all screens and on line help that contains that term anywhere in the string.

  • Customized system user preferences

    You can specify the amount of time that passes before BIG-IQ logs you out when the system is idle, what default screen displays when you log back in, or change your password by clicking the arrow at the upper-right corner of the screen and select User Preferences.

  • Global search, related content, and preview pane

    BIG-IQ has a robust and interactive global search feature that allows you to easily find a specific content and related content. From any screen, you can click the magnifying glass icon in the upper-right corner of the screen and type a search string. Search results are grouped by content type. From the results, you can click an object to go directly to that object’s properties screen in BIG-IQ.

  • Flexible access to objects and configuration options

    For some objects, you can view and edit settings that are located in other places in the user interface, without having to stop what you’re doing and navigate to another part of BIG-IQ. For example, you could be editing a firewall policy and find an address list in the toolbox that you want to look at. Right there, you can click the address to access the details, and then view or edit it as you want.

    You can also configure some types of objects from different places in BIG-IQ, depending on what your user role is or what work flow you’re in. For example, you can create an access group from the Configuration area of BIG-IQ, as well as from the Devices area. This makes it convenient for you to access during other tasks you’re doing in different areas of BIG-IQ.

  • Filters

    For each screen that contains a list, you can use a context-sensitive filter to search on a term, and then narrow your search further to view only those items that are relevant to you at the moment. For example, say you wanted to see local traffic and network audit logs. You can use the search on local traffic, and further refine what is displayed by filtering again on network audit logs.

  • Customizing and sorting columns

    You can customize the columns that display in each screen that has a list by clicking the gear icon at the top right side of the screen, next to the filter, hiding any information that isn’t important to you. You can also rearrange columns by dragging and dropping them to a different location or sort objects by clicking the arrow at the top of a column. This helps you to focus on only those attributes that are relevant to you.

Setting up BIG-IQ in a high availability configuration ensures that you always have access to the BIG-IP devices you are managing. In a BIG-IQ high availability configuration, the BIG-IQ system replicates configuration changes since the last synchronization from the primary device to the secondary device every 30 seconds. If it ever becomes necessary, you can have the secondary peer take over management of the BIG-IP devices.

Note:

You can also set up BIG-IQ in an auto failover configuration. For more information, refer to Creating a BIG-IQ High Availability Auto Failover Configuration on support.f5.com.

If you’ve configured SSL certificate verification for BIG-IQ by enabling the Verify Hosts setting from the System > SSL CERTIFICATE VERIFICATION screen, you must use this procedure for successful communication between the components in the high availability configuration.

Note: SSL certificate verification is disabled by default. If you haven’t enabled SSL verification, you do not need to complete this task for your auto failover high availability configuration.

Before you create an auto-failover BIG-IQ high availability configuration for a BIG-IQ you’ve enabled SSL certificate verification for, you need to add the SSL certificates for both BIG-IQ systems and the DCD quorum to what will be the active BIG-IQ so you can validate the end-user host. This is required for all BIG-IQ systems and the DCD quorum with SSL certificate verification enabled to communicate with your managed devices, regardless of which BIG-IQ system is active. BIG-IQ validates the SSL certificate presented by the communicating host either against a list of certificates you provide (for example, self-signed certificates), or internal or public certificate authority certificates.

  1. Save the BIG-IQ SSL public key certificates on your local system.

  2. At the top of the screen, click System.

  3. On the left, click SSL CERTIFICATION VERIFICATION.

  4. Click Import.

  5. From the Import Type list, select Certificate.

  6. Type a Name for this BIG-IQ certificate.

    BIG-IQ stores and identifies this certificate by the name you specify here. Therefore, if the certificate you are importing is currently named mycertificate.crt, but you when you import it you name it f5.crt, BIG-IQ renames the certificate as you specified, to f5.crt.

  7. Click Upload File and navigate to the certificate.

  8. Repeat steps 4 - 8 to add the standby BIG-IQ system’s certificate device to this active BIG-IQ system.

You can now add the standby BIG-IQ system and DCD quorum to create a high availability configuration.

Before you can set up F5 BIG-IQ Centralized Management in a high availability (HA) pair, you must have two licensed BIG-IQ systems and you must have added the primary and secondary SSL certificate to the primary BIG-IQ system.

For the high-availability pair to synchronize properly, each system must be running the same BIG-IQ version, and the clocks on each system must be synchronized to within 60 seconds. To make sure the clocks are in sync, take a look at the NTP settings on each system before you add a peer.

Configuring BIG-IQ in a high availability (HA) pair means that you can still manage your BIG-IP devices even if one BIG-IQ systems fails.

Note: Do not install the standby BIG-IQ on the same hardware as the active BIG-IQ. That way, if a hardware issue takes the active BIG-IQ offline, it can failover to the standby BIG-IQ installed on another hardware platform so you can continue to manage your BIG-IP devices.

  1. At the top of the screen, click System.

  2. On the left, click BIG-IQ HA.

  3. Click the Add Secondary button.

  4. Type the properties for the BIG-IQ system that you are adding.

    For the IP address, be sure to specify the Discovery Address of the BIG-IQ you are adding.

    BIG-IQ does not support iPv6 short format for high availability configuration.

  5. Click the Add button at the bottom of the screen.

The BIG-IQ system synchronize. Once they are finished, both appear as ready (green).

If the one of your BIG-IQ systems in an HA pair is having any type of system issue, you might want to make its peer system a standalone system until you can fix the problem.

  1. At the top of the screen, click System.

  2. On the left, click BIG-IQ HA.

  3. Click the BIG-IQ HA Settings button and then click the Reset to Standalone button.

This BIG-IQ system becomes a standalone system from which you can start managing your devices.

If the F5 BIG-IQ Centralized Management system is configured in an HA pair, you must remove the standby BIG-IQ system before you upgrade the active BIG-IQ.

  1. At the top of the screen, click System.

  2. On the left, click BIG-IQ HA.

  3. Click Remove Standby.

    A dialog box opens, prompting you to confirm that you want to remove the standby BIG-IQ from this group.

  4. Click Remove to confirm that you want to take the standby BIG-IQ from the group.

    The system logs you out of the BIG-IQ while it removes the standby BIG-IQ.

  5. Log back in to the active BIG-IQ.

    For a while, both the active and the standby BIG-IQ continue to display. After a few minutes, the screen updates to display a single standalone BIG-IQ.

During the licensing and initial configuration procedures, you specify the management port for BIG-IQ. This is all the networking configuration required to start managing devices. However, if you would prefer to manage devices from a VLAN address, you have the option to configure that.

You must have licensed the BIG-IQ system before you can configure a VLAN.

If you decide you want to manage BIG-IP devices from a VLAN rather than the BIG-IQ system’s management port, you can configure it using this procedure.

  1. At the top of the screen, click System.

  2. On the left, click NETWORK SETTINGS > VLANs.

  3. Click the Create button.

  4. In the Name and Description fields, type a unique name and description to identify this new VLAN.

  5. In the Tag field, type an optional tag number.

    A VLAN tag is a unique ID number between 1 and 4094. All messages sent from a host in this VLAN includes the tag as a header in the message to identify the specific VLAN where the source or destination host is located. If you do not assign a tag, BIG-IQ assigns one automatically.

  6. From the Interface list, select the port that you want this VLAN to use.

    The interface is a physical or virtual port that you use to connect the BIG-IQ system to managed devices in your network.

  7. In the MTU field, type an optional frame size value for Path Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU).

    By default, BIG-IP devices use the standard Ethernet frame size of 1518 bytes (1522 bytes if VLAN tagging is used) with the corresponding MTU of 1500 bytes. For BIG-IP devices that support Jumbo Frames, you can specify another MTU value.

  8. Click the Save & Close button.

You need to configure BIG-IQ with at least a VLAN before you can associate a self IP address with it.

If you’ve configured a VLAN to manage BIG-IP devices, you can then associate a self IP address with that VLAN.

  1. At the top of the screen, click System.

  2. On the left, click NETWORK SETTINGS > Self IPs.

  3. At the top of the screen, click the Create button.

  4. In the Name field, type a unique name to identify this new self IP address.

  5. In the Address field, type the self IP address and netmask.

    The format is <self IP address/netmask>.

  6. In the Description field, type a description for this self IP address.

  7. From the VLAN list, select the VLAN to associate with this self IP address.

  8. Click the Save & Close button.

Before you can specify a web proxy, you must license and perform the initial configuration for BIG-IQ Centralized Management.

For security purposes, you can specify a web proxy for BIG-IQ to use for communication with the F5 iHealth server and the F5 license server.

  1. At the top of the screen, click System.

  2. On the left, click PROXIES.

  3. Near the top of the screen, click the Add button.

  4. In the Name field, type a name to identify this web proxy.

    Important: You must use the exact same proxy name on all BIG-IQ systems in a cluster.

  5. In the Address and Port fields, type the IP address and port for the web proxy server.

    The proxy address and port don’t have to be the same for all BIG-IQ systems in a cluster.

  6. If the web proxy server requires authentication, provide the credentials in the User Name and Password fields.

  7. For the Functions setting, select the check box next to each function you want to use this web proxy for communication between BIG-IQ and the internet.

  8. Click the Save & Close button.

BIG-IQ will now use this web proxy for communication when accessing the internet for the functionality you specified.

If you configure two BIG-IQ system separately and then want to add a peer BIG-IQ system for a high availability configuration, you’ll need to change the Master Key one of the BIG-IQ system so they match.

  1. At the top of the screen, click System.

  2. On the left, click General Properties.

  3. Click the Edit button on the right.

  4. Click the Change Master Key button.

  5. Type the current and new Master Key passphrases and confirm the new passphrase.

  6. Click the Save button.