Applies To:
Show Versions
BIG-IP AFM
- 11.5.1
Summary:
This release note documents the version 11.5.1 release of BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM).
Contents:
- Supported platforms
- Configuration utility browser support
- User documentation for this release
- New features introduced in 11.5.1
- Supported high availability configurations for Advanced Firewall Manager
- Installation overview
- Known issues
- Fixes in 11.5.1
- Contacting F5 Networks
- Legal notices
Supported platforms
This version of the software is supported on the following platforms:
| Platform name | Platform ID |
|---|---|
| BIG-IP 1600 | C102 |
| BIG-IP 3600 | C103 |
| BIG-IP 3900 | C106 |
| BIG-IP 6900 | D104 |
| BIG-IP 8900 | D106 |
| BIG-IP 8950 | D107 |
| BIG-IP 11000 | E101 |
| BIG-IP 11050 | E102 |
| BIG-IP 2000s, BIG-IP 2200s | C112 |
| BIG-IP 4000s, BIG-IP 4200v | C113 |
| BIG-IP 5000s, 5050s, 5200v, 5250v | C109 |
| BIG-IP 7000s, 7050s, 7200v, 7250v | D110 |
| BIG-IP 10000s, 10050s, 10200v, 10250v | D113 |
| VIPRION B2100 Blade | A109 |
| VIPRION B2150 Blade | A113 |
| VIPRION B2250 Blade | A112 |
| VIPRION B4100, B4100N Blade | A100, A105 |
| VIPRION B4200, B4200N Blade | A107, A111 |
| VIPRION B4300, B4340N Blade | A108, A110 |
| VIPRION C2200 Chassis | D114 |
| VIPRION C2400 Chassis | F100 |
| VIPRION C4400, C4400N Chassis | J100, J101 |
| VIPRION C4480, C4480N Chassis | J102, J103 |
| VIPRION C4800, C4800N Chassis | S100, S101 |
| Virtual Edition (VE) | Z100 |
| vCMP Guest | Z101 |
These platforms support various licensable combinations of product modules. This section provides general guidelines for module support.
Most of the support guidelines relate to memory on the platform or provisioned guest. For vCMP support, the following list applies for all memory levels:
- vCMP supported platforms
- VIPRION B2100, B2150, B2250, B4200, B4300, B4340N
- BIG-IP 5200v, 7200v, 10200v
Memory: 12 GB or more
All licensable module-combinations may be run on platforms with 12 GB or more of memory, and on VE and vCMP guests provisioned with 12 GB or more of memory. Note that this does not mean that all modules may be simultaneously provisioned on all platforms with 12 GB or more of memory. The BIG-IP license for the platform determines which combination of modules are available for provisioning.
Memory: 8 GB
The following guidelines apply to the BIG-IP 2000s, 2200s, 3900, 6900 platforms, to the VIPRION B4100 and B4100N platforms, and to VE guests configured with 8 GB of memory. (A vCMP guest provisioned with 8 GB of memory has less than 8 GB of memory actually available and thus does not fit in this category.)
- No more than three modules should be provisioned together.
- On the 2000s and 2200s, Application Acceleration Manager (AAM) can be provisioned with only one other module.
Memory: Less than 8 GB and more than 4 GB
The following guidelines apply to platforms, and to VE and vCMP guests provisioned with less than 8 GB and more than 4 GB of memory. (A vCMP guest provisioned with 8 GB of memory has less than 8 GB of memory actually available and thus fits in this category).
- No more than three modules (not including AAM) should be provisioned together.
- Application Acceleration Manager (AAM) cannot be provisioned with any other module; AAM can only be provisioned standalone.
- Analytics (AVR) counts towards the two module-combination limit (for platforms with less than 6.25 GB of memory).
Memory: 4 GB or less
The following guidelines apply to the BIG-IP 1600 and 3600 platforms, and to VE and vCMP guests provisioned with 4 GB or less of memory.
- No more than two modules may be configured together.
- AAM should not be provisioned, except as Dedicated.
vCMP memory provisioning calculations
The amount of memory provisioned to a vCMP guest is calculated using the following formula: (platform_memory- 3 GB) x (cpus_assigned_to_guest/ total_cpus).
As an example, for the B2100 with two guests, provisioned memory calculates as: (16-3) x (2/4) ~= 6.5 GB.
Configuration utility browser support
The BIG-IP Configuration Utility supports these browsers and versions:
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.x, 11.x
- Mozilla Firefox 27.x
- Google Chrome 32.x
User documentation for this release
For a comprehensive list of documentation that is relevant to this release, refer to the BIG-IP AFM / VE 11.5.0 Documentation page.
New features introduced in 11.5.1
There are no new features in Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) 11.5.1.
AFM introduced several new features with release 11.5.0.
IP intelligence whitelists and blacklists
This release introduces robust enhancements to the IP intelligence system that include the ability to blacklist or whitelist IP addresses. IP addresses that are blacklisted or whitelisted can be assigned to pre-existing or user-defined blacklist classes (called categories in tmsh), and firewall actions can be applied based on those categories. Advanced Firewall Manager can be configured to query dynamic lists of blacklist or whitelist addresses, called feeds, and update the configuration accordingly.
Nested address lists and port lists
Address lists can contain combinations of single IP addresses, IP address ranges, geographic locations, and other address lists. Port lists can contain single ports, port ranges, and other port lists.
Geolocation for source or destination addresses
Firewall rules can use geolocation addresses, such as country, region, and state codes, in source or destination addresses.
Stale, redundant, and overlapping rules detection
You can more easily check for and remove stale rules that either have never been hit, or are hit infrequently. You can also see rules that are redundant or overlap other rules.
DoS white list
You can specify addresses to exclude from denial-of-service (DoS) detection, by adding them to a DoS whitelist.
DoS sweep and flood detection
You can configure thresholds for DoS sweep and flood attack protection from the DoS device configuration.
Maximized Enterprise Application Delivery Value
To make it easier and more affordable to get the Software Defined Application Services capabilities all organizations need, F5 introduces three software bundle offerings: Good, Better, and Best.- Good
- Provides intelligent local traffic management for increased operational efficiency and peak network performance of applications.
- Better
- Good plus enhanced network security, global server load balancing, and advanced application delivery optimization.
- Best
- Better plus advanced access management and total application security. Delivers the ultimate in security, performance, and availability for your applications and network.
Supported high availability configurations for Advanced Firewall Manager
Advanced Firewall Manager is supported in both active-standby and active-active configurations with BIG-IP systems.
Installation overview
This document covers very basic steps for installing the software. You can find complete, step-by-step installation and upgrade instructions in BIG-IP Systems: Upgrading Active-Standby Systems and BIG-IP Systems: Upgrading Active-Active Systems, and we strongly recommend that you reference these documents to ensure successful completion of the installation process.
Installation checklist
Before you begin:
- Use BIG-IP iHealth to verify your configuration file. For more information, see SOL12878: Generating BIG-IP diagnostic data using the qkview utility (10.x - 11.x).
- Update/reactivate your system license, if needed, to ensure that you have a valid service check date.
- Ensure that your system is running version 10.1.0 or later and is using the volumes formatting scheme.
- Download the .iso file (if needed) from F5 Downloads to /shared/images on the source for the operation. (If you need to create this directory, use the exact name /shared/images.)
- Configure a management port.
- Set the console and system baud rate to 19200, if it is not already.
- Log on as an administrator using the management port of the system you want to upgrade.
- Boot into an installation location other than the target for the installation.
- Save the user configuration set (UCS) in the /var/local/ucs directory on the source installation location, and copy the UCS file to a safe place on another device.
- Log on to the standby unit, and only upgrade the active unit after the standby upgrade is satisfactory.
- Turn off mirroring.
- If you are running Application Acceleration Manager, set provisioning to Minimum.
- If you are running Policy Enforcement Manager, set provisioning to Nominal.
- If you are running Advanced Firewall Manager, set provisioning to Nominal.
Installing the software
| Installation method | Command |
|---|---|
| Install to existing volume, migrate source configuration to destination | tmsh install sys software image [image name] volume [volume name] |
| Install from the browser-based Configuration utility | Use the Software Management screens in a web browser. |
Sample installation command
The following command installs version 11.2.0 to volume 3 of the main hard drive.
tmsh install sys software image BIGIP-11.2.0.2446.0.iso volume HD1.3
Post-installation tasks
This document covers very basic steps for installing the software. You can find complete, step-by-step installation and upgrade instructions in BIG-IP Systems: Upgrading Active-Standby Systems and BIG-IP Systems: Upgrading Active-Active Systems, and we strongly recommend that you reference these documents to ensure successful completion of the installation process.
- Ensure the system rebooted to the new installation location.
- Use BIG-IP iHealth to verify your configuration file. For more information, see SOL12878: Generating BIG-IP diagnostic data using the qkview utility (10.x - 11.x).
- Log on to the browser-based Configuration utility.
- Run the Setup utility.
- Provision the modules.
- Convert any bigpipe scripts to tmsh. (Version 11.x does not support the bigpipe utility.)
Installation tips
- The upgrade process installs the software on the inactive installation location that you specify. This process usually takes between three minutes and seven minutes. During the upgrade process, you see messages posted on the screen. For example, you might see a prompt asking whether to upgrade the End User Diagnostics (EUD), depending on the version you have installed. To upgrade the EUD, type yes, otherwise, type no.
- You can check the status of an active installation operation by running the command watch tmsh show sys software, which runs the show sys software command every two seconds. Pressing Ctrl + C stops the watch feature.
- If installation fails, you can view the log file. The system stores the installation log file as /var/log/liveinstall.log.
Known issues
This release contains the following known issues.
| ID number | Description |
|---|---|
| 404876 | When an existing rule is modified or when it transitions from active to inactive due to scheduling, the associated hit counters are reset. |
| 407452 | The virtual server does not have the capability to detect DoS attacks or anomalies. As a workaround, attach the corresponding base protocol profile to the virtual. |
| 414228 | Creating a DSlite tunnel may cause the network firewall to log messages indicating that the tunnel matched the virtual server default rule. |
| 415107 | When creating a firewall rule with both rule list and IP protocol specified in the tmsh command, no IP protocol validation error message will be shown. Instead, the IP protocol field will be silently ignored. |
| 415442 | Configuring the network firewall of a VCMP guest to log to local-db can result in performance degradation and loss of traffic in environments with significant load. F5 recommends using the High Speed Logging (HSL) feature to log off the box. |
| 415772 | Currently, when a network firewall rule matches a VLAN, the VLAN group name appears in the log, instead of the VLAN name. |
| 419263 | In the event of an ARP flood attack, the AVR reporting message does not have show the correct source IP address. Even though the ARP flood attack is detected for IPV4, and we dont have source ip address, it will show in IPV6 format. |
| 419363 | When a rule is added to the management port context, and the rule source or destination address does not conform to the management port address family, an error occurs. However, the error returns the rule name as jumbled characters in the admin interface. GUI displays garbage string in rule name. None. |
| 421016 | Currently, when the Network Firewall is configured in Firewall mode (default deny), Access Policy Manager (APM) traffic might be dropped. The Network Firewall does work with APM when configured in ADC mode (default allow for self IPs and virtual servers). When this occurs, users are unable to access BIG-IP APM configured services. |
| 428162 | AVR reporting does not work when DoS attack is detected within a VLAN group. |
| 429106 | Overlapping rules are not detected if one rule has geolocation defined and the other has the explicit IP address, which is matching the defined geolocation. For overlapping checking purposes, IP address and geolocation are considered different matching fields. The overlapping rule check will not check across different fields, such as IP address and geolocation. Minimum. The users may be confused by the behavior since they may think that if a GEO is resolved to the same IP address in other rules they should be reported as duplicate. However the current behavior is no reporting of duplication. None. |
| 429401 | Overlapping checks will not report the overlapping status of firewall rules, that contain the property schedule. Those firewall rules are not always active and are not considered when performing overlapping rule checks. In the current release, the overlapping rule check only reports overlapping status for rules that are always active. |
| 430264 | The VE versions of BIG-IP running on certain versions of the VMWare Broadcom drivers incorrectly report no error for IP packets that do have an IP checksum error. As a result, some IP checksum errors are not reported in those scenarios. The workaround is to enable software-based checking, with the db-variable tm.tcpudpiprxchecksum, though this will have some performance impact. |
| 431133 | You cannot find default firewall rules by searching for the word Default. As a workaround, select All to find the Global Default Rule, or All (Show Implied Rules) to see virtual server or Self IP default rules. |
| 431677 | Due to the way compilation time of firewall rulesets is calculated, the time may appear to be understated. Compilation time does not include time when the compilation process is blocked waiting for other processes. |
| 432661 | When traffic is across multiple modules, DoS Sweep and Flood detection accuracy may not be optimal. For example, for 2 blade system, for threshold = 1200, detection happens around ~1150 rate; for threshold = 3000, detection happens around ~2800 rate. |
| 433417 | In some situations the same packet might be counted for two different DoS vectors, even though one vector causes the packet to be dropped. |
| 436058 | The DoS Device whitelist does not work for a system in vCMP mode. The DoS whitelist must not contain any entries to provision vCMP. |
| 436691 | Most firewall contexts follow the standard rules for referencing objects outside their own partition. For example, a firewall policy in partition /A may not be assigned, either as an enforced or staged policy, to a virtual server in the /Common partition. The global firewall context, however, is not subject to the standard restrictions on cross-partition assignment. If any firewall policies exist in partitions other than the /Common partition, a Firewall Manager or a more privileged user may assign these policies to the global firewall context. |
| 441597 | When displaying stats user will see a 0 count for network category of IP intelligence statistics. |
| 442535 | When the time zone of the AFM system changes, logging timestamps are not updated to the new timezone. As a workaround, restart TMM. |
| 453377 | When a network firewall rule is configured on a Self IP context, and an iRule is specified in the rule, an error occurs and the rule does not correctly process traffic. |
Contacting F5 Networks
| Phone: | (206) 272-6888 |
| Fax: | (206) 272-6802 |
| Web: | http://support.f5.com |
| Email: | support@f5.com |
For additional information, please visit http://www.f5.com.
Additional resources
You can find additional support resources and technical documentation through a variety of sources.
- The F5 Networks Technical Support web site: http://www.f5.com/support/
- The AskF5 web site: http://support.f5.com/kb/en-us.html
- The F5 DevCentral web site: http://devcentral.f5.com/
- AskF5 TechNews
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