Internal Appliance Networking

Internal appliance networking overview

The rSeries system uses an internal appliance network for control plane and management plane communication between firmware and software on the system. Traffic on this internal network is firewall-protected and is not exposed to a customer’s management network.

Internal rSeries appliance networking can use one of two IP address ranges known as RFC6598 and RFC1918. The RFC6598 address range maps the predefined rSeries internal network range to 100.64/12 IP addresses (the default). The RFC1918 range enables you choose one of 16 possible address ranges in the 10.0.0.0/12 address range.

IP addresses in the predefined range are reserved for the internal network and cannot be used for any of these addresses:

• Management IP addresses for the rSeries system and tenants
• Any external service configured on the rSeries system, such as a DNS server and NTP server
• Source IP addresses of any device used to communicate with the rSeries system (such as a laptop, workstation, or other device that connects)

If your network uses addresses in the default predefined range for any of the above, you will not be able to access the rSeries system using the rSeries management interface (including the CLI, webUI, or REST APIs). This is only an issue if you use 100.64.0.0/12 addresses for management IP addresses, external servers, or source IP addresses described here. To prevent this issue, F5 provides a procedure that enables you to select a different internal IP address range during initial provisioning of a system, as an alternative to using the default range.

Change the internal network IP range

The rSeries internal network uses 100.64.0.0/12 addresses, as specified by RFC6598. If your network needs to use this range, you can change the range of IP addresses that the internal chassis network implements. Instead, you can choose one of 16 possible address ranges in the 10.0.0.0/16 address range, as specified by RFC1918.

Note: It is recommended that you make this change before initial configuration or immediately after.

1. If you have not performed initial setup of the system and configured management IP addresses, connect using the management console. If setup is already complete, log in using the management IP address.

2. Log in to the command line interface (CLI) of the system using an account with admin access.

   When you log in to the system, you are in user (operational) mode.

3. Change to config mode.

   config

   The CLI prompt changes to include (config).

4. Show the network prefix ranges for network range RFC1918.

   system network config network-range-type RFC1918 prefix ?

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   appliance-1(config)# system network config network-range-type RFC1918 prefix ?
   Description: 
   The network prefix index is used to select the range of IP addresses
   used internally within the appliance. The network prefix should be
   selected such that internal appliance addresses do not overlap with
   site-local addresses that are accessible to the appliance.
   
   
   Network Prefix Index       Appliance Network Range
   0                          10.[0-15].0.0/12                          
   1                          10.[16-31].0.0/12
   2                          10.[32-47].0.0/12
   3                          10.[48-63].0.0/12
   4                          10.[64-79].0.0/16
   5                          10.[80-95].0.0/12
   6                          10.[96-111].0.0/12
   7                          10.[112-127].0.0/12
   8                          10.[128-143].0.0/12
   9                          10.[144-159].0.0/12
   10                         10.[160-175].0.0/12
   11                         10.[176-191].0.0/12
   12                         10.[192-207].0.0/12
   13                         10.[208-223].0.0/12
   14                         10.[224-239].0.0/12
   15                         10.[240-255].0.0/12
   Possible completions:
     <unsignedByte, 0 .. 15>[0]

5. Select the network range to use for internal networking (0-15).

   system network config network-range-type RFC1918 prefix <*0*-*15*>

   This example sets the range to 10.[0-15].0.0/16:

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   appliance-1(config)# system network config network-range-type RFC1918 prefix 0

6. Commit the configuration changes.

   commit

7. Power cycle the appliance.

   Warning: Changing the internal appliance network causes an automatic cluster reinstall process that takes approximately an hour to complete.

8. Check the status of the cluster installation.

   show cluster install-status

   A summary similar to this example displays:

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   appliance-1# show cluster install-status 
   STAGE NAME               STATUS      TIMESTAMP            VERSION
   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
   K3SClusterInstall        done        2022/08/22-17:54:01  1.21.1.1.8.5

When the install status is done for all stages, you can resume configuring the system.