Manual Chapter : Discovering and importing SSL Orchestrator on BIG-IQ

Applies To:

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BIG-IQ Centralized Management

  • 8.3.0, 8.2.0, 8.1.0, 8.0.0
Manual Chapter

Discovering and importing SSL Orchestrator on BIG-IQ

BIG-IQ SSL Orchestrator overview

F5 SSL Orchestrator (SSLO) provides an all-in-one appliance solution designed to optimize the SSL infrastructure, provide security devices with visibility of SSL/TLS encrypted traffic, and maximize the efficient use of that existing security investment.
This solution centralizes and consolidates SSL inspection across complex security architectures, allowing you flexible configuration and deployment options to decrypt and re-encrypt user traffic across multiple devices. It supports policy-based management and steering of traffic flows to third-party security devices, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), anti-malware, data loss prevention (DLP), and many other forensics tools. It provides a wide range of SSL Orchestration analytics that you can easily customize based on the preferences that you set and manage. SSLO is also designed to work autonomously; that is, you can use the full SSLO feature set on your BIG-IP devices without having to also install and provision the BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) and BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) services.

How do I start managing SSL Orchestrator from BIG-IQ?

To manage SSL Orchestrator (SSLO) from BIG-IQ Centralized Management, BIG-IQ must be managing the BIG-IP devices running SSLO. To start managing a BIG-IP device, you must add it to the BIG-IP Devices in the BIG-IQ Centralized Management's inventory list.
There are a few ways you can add BIG-IP and BIG-IP VE devices to your BIG-IQ system so you can start managing them.
  • Add a BIG-IP or BIG-IP VE device located in your network, specify its configuration options, and import its services all in one step in a process called onboarding.
  • Add a BIG-IP VE device located in a third-party cloud environment, then onboard it.
  • Add one or more BIG-IP device(s) located in your network, and discover and import its services in a separate procedure.
You cannot discover the SSL Orchestrator service from multiple BIG-IP devices at once. This service must be discovered from one BIG-IP device at a time.

Discover SSL Orchestrator configurations

Before initiating the BIG-IQ discovery process, make sure that the BIG-IP configuration that you want to discover is accurate and up to date, and that you are managing the BIG-IP device running the service.
You discover SSL Orchestrator (SSLO) configurations from your managed BIG-IP devices to ensure consistent configurations across managed BIG-IP devices.
  1. On BIG-IQ, click
    Devices
    .
  2. On the left, click
    BIG-IP Devices
    .
    If you are adding a new managed device, use the popup to select the services that you want to discover.
    The screen displays a list of managed devices for this BIG-IQ Centralized Management system.
  3. Under Device Name, select the BIG-IP device running the SSL Orchestrator service configuration that you want to discover.
  4. Select
    SERVICES
    and scroll down to SSL Orchestrator at the bottom of the page.
  5. To discover the SSL Orchestrator service that you want to manage on BIG-IQ, click
    Discover
    .
    The discovery process should take several seconds. The system confirms when the SSLO device has been discovered.
    You cannot discover the SSL Orchestrator service from multiple BIG-IP devices at once. This service must be discovered from one BIG-IP device at a time.
  6. Wait fifteen minutes to discover another SSL Orchestrator service from a different BIG-IP device. This will allow the system enough time to auto-refresh.
Once you have finished discovering an SSL Orchestration configuration, you are ready to import the SSL Orchestrator configuration into BIG-IQ.

Import SSL Orchestrator configuration into BIG-IQ

Before importing an SSL Orchestrator (SSLO) configuration from a BIG-IP device to manage SSLO configurations on BIG-IQ, you must first discover the BIG-IP service.
To begin managing BIG-IP SSLO configurations from BIG-IQ, you must discover the SSLO service and import its configuration. You can re-discover services at any time, but importing this service is a one-time process.
Unlike other services that can be managed from BIG-IQ, SSLO uses a one-time import process. Because you cannot re-import an SSLO configuration, after you complete the initial SSLO discovery and import, do not perform any SSLO configuration changes locally (on the BIG-IP). Instead, you can avoid configuration inconsistencies between the BIG-IP device and BIG-IQ by making all changes on the BIG-IQ.
  1. On BIG-IQ, at the top, click
    Devices
    .
  2. On the left, click
    BIG-IP DEVICES
    .
    The screen displays the list of managed devices for this BIG-IQ Centralized Management system.
  3. Under Device Name, click the hostname of the BIG-IP device that contains the SSLO configuration you want to import.
  4. Select
    SERVICES
    .
  5. To import an SSLO device configuration into BIG-IQ, scroll down to SSL Orchestrator and select
    Import
    .
    After you click
    Import
    , the system opens a popup screen. On this screen, you review and update the settings for the SSLO service on the device. Then, you deploy those settings back to the BIG-IP device before importing the service to BIG-IQ.
  6. For
    Location
    , identify where the devices are physically located.
    • To add this service to an existing location, click
      Use Existing
      , and select the location to which you want BIG-IQ to add this device.
    • To specify a new location, click
      Create New
      , and then type a name for the new location.
  7. Scan the rest of the settings and revise as needed.
    If SSLO has been configured on the BIG-IP device, BIG-IQ displays the current settings from the device. Otherwise, all other required fields are set to their defaults. In either case, you have the option to revise these settings here.
  8. Click
    Deploy
    .
    BIG-IQ deploys the configuration you specified to the BIG-IP device, and then displays an
    Import
    button.
  9. Click
    Import
    .
    BIG-IQ imports the SSLO configuration from the BIG-IP device.
Once you import an SSLO configuration, you should perform all SSLO configuration management from BIG-IQ. When you have changes to make, you can revise the configuration of all SSLO devices using one deployment.