Manual Chapter : After Deploying BIG-IP VE on vCloud Director

Applies To:

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BIG-IP AAM

  • 13.0.1, 13.0.0

BIG-IP APM

  • 13.0.1, 13.0.0

BIG-IP Analytics

  • 13.0.1, 13.0.0

BIG-IP LTM

  • 13.0.1, 13.0.0

BIG-IP AFM

  • 13.0.1, 13.0.0

BIG-IP PEM

  • 13.0.1, 13.0.0

BIG-IP DNS

  • 13.0.1, 13.0.0

BIG-IP ASM

  • 13.0.1, 13.0.0
Manual Chapter

Enable config sync for BIG-IP VE in vCloud Director

Before you can complete this task:
  • Both BIG-IP VEs must be running the same version of BIG-IP VE system software.
  • The BIG-IP VEs must not have the same device name. To view the name, use the tmsh command: list /cm device. The device name is in the first line that is returned, for example cm device bigip1 {. To change the name, use mv cm device <current_device_name> <new_device_name> .
Enable config sync communication when you want to automatically or manually synchronize configuration information.
Note: The following steps apply to single-NIC configuration only. If you have multiple NICs, follow the standard procedures for enabling config sync.
  1. Use an SSH tool to connect to each of the BIG-IP VEs.
  2. Ensure you are at the tmsh prompt.
    tmsh
  3. On each BIG-IP VE, disable functionality that enforces single NIC setup.
    modify sys db provision.1nicautoconfig value disable
  4. Confirm that the value was set correctly by typing list sys db provision.1nicautoconfig.
    The following text is returned: value "disable".
  5. On each BIG-IP VE, specify the static private IP address of the BIG-IP VE itself.
    modify cm device <device_name> configsync-ip <private_ip_address>
  6. Establish device trust: On one BIG-IP VE, enter the static private IP address of the other BIG-IP VE, along with its user name and password.
    modify cm trust-domain add-device { ca-device true device-ip <peer_ip_address> device-name <peer_device_name> username <peer_username> password <peer_password> }
  7. On the same BIG-IP VE as the previous step, create a sync-failover device group with network failover disabled.
    create cm device-group <device_group_name> devices add { <all-bigip-device-names-separated-by-space> } type sync-failover auto-sync enabled network-failover disabled
  8. Sync the BIG-IP VE to the other BIG-IP VE.
    run cm config-sync to-group <device_group_name>

Change the NIC used for BIG-IP VE management

By default, management traffic goes through the eth0 NIC and data traffic goes through the other available NICs. If you need to use eth0 for data traffic, you can change the NIC that management traffic goes through.
  1. Use SSH to connect to BIG-IP VE.
  2. If you need to determine which NICs are available, stop TMM by typing bigstart stop tmm. Then type ip addr to view the list of available NICs.
  3. Change the management NIC by typing tmsh modify sys db provision.managementeth value eth1 where eth1 is the NIC you want to use for management. You can use any available NIC.
  4. Press Enter.
  5. Reboot BIG-IP VE by typing reboot and pressing Enter.
When BIG-IP VE is running again, you can use eth0 for data.
Note: If the subnet associated with the management NIC does not have DHCP, you must assign a new IP address by using the BIG-IP Configuration utility tool.

About routes in a single NIC configuration

If you want to configure a static route that relies on a gateway in the same subnet as the self IP address, you must first disable the setting that enforces single NIC setup:

modify sys db provision.1nicautoconfig value disable

Confirm that the value is correct by typing list sys db provision.1nicautoconfig.

The return value should be disable.

If you do not change this value, any time you reboot BIG-IP VE, the manually-configured static route will cause validation errors during load sys config.

Change from single NIC to multi-NIC

When you initially boot BIG-IP VE, if it recognized only one NIC, then some network configuration was done automatically. If you want to use more than one NIC, complete the following steps.
  1. Use an SSH tool to connect to BIG-IP VE.
  2. Return to the default configuration.
    tmsh load sys config default
  3. Save the changes.
    tmsh save sys config
  4. Set a database variable so that the number of NICs will be recognized on reboot.
    setdb provision.1nic enable
  5. Reboot BIG-IP VE.
    reboot
When the BIG-IP VE instance is up and running, multiple NICs will be recognized and you can begin configuring BIG-IP VE.

Change from multi-NIC to single NIC

If you have a BIG-IP VE configuration with multiple NICs, you can simplify the configuration to have only one NIC. When you boot the BIG-IP VE and only one NIC is recognized, some networking objects are created automatically for you.
  1. Use an SSH tool to connect to BIG-IP VE.
  2. Return to the default configuration of BIG-IP VE.
    tmsh load sys config default
  3. Save the changes.
    tmsh save sys config
  4. Set a database variable so that the number of NICs will be recognized on reboot.
    setdb provision.1nic forced_enable
  5. Reboot BIG-IP VE.
    reboot
When the BIG-IP VE instance is up and running, it will have a single NIC and related network objects will be created.