BIG-IP platform considerations

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. The following list applies for all memory levels:

• vCMP supported platforms
  • VIPRION B2100, B2150, B2250, B4200
  • VIPRION B4300 blade in the C4480(J102) and the C4800(S100)
  • VIPRION B4450 blade in the C4480(J102) and C4800(S100)
  • BIG-IP 5200v, 5250v, 7200v, 7250v, 10200v, 10250v, 10350v, 12250v
  • BIG-IP i5800, i7800, i10800

• PEM and CGNAT supported platforms
  • VIPRION B2100, B2150, B2250, B4300, B4340N
  • BIG-IP 5x00v(s), 7x00v(s), 10x00v(s)
  • BIG-IP Virtual Edition (VE) (Not including Amazon Web Service Virtual Edition) (3 GB, 10 GB production and combination lab models)
  • PEM and CGNAT may be provisioned on the VIPRION B4200, but it is not recommended for production, only for evaluation. PEM may be provisioned on the VIPRION B2100, but it is not recommended for production, only for evaluation. Use the B4300/B4340N or another blade instead.
  • PEM is not supported on vCMP guests.
  • PEM is not supported on 8 GB platforms.

• BIG-IP 800 platform support
  • The BIG-IP 800 platform supports Local Traffic Manager (LTM) only, and no other modules.

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, 6900 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.
• To use Access Policy Manager (APM) and Secure Web Gateway (SWG) modules together on platforms with exactly 8 GB of memory, Local Traffic Manager (LTM) provisioning must be set to None.

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 (VE and vCMP only)

The following guidelines apply 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.
• ASM should not be provisioned, except as Dedicated

VIPRION and vCMP caching and deduplication requirements

Application Acceleration Manager (AAM) supports the following functionality when configuring vCMP and VIPRION platforms.

• AAM does not support disk-based caching functionality on vCMP platforms. AAM requires memory-based caching when configuring it to run on vCMP platforms.
• AAM supports disk-based caching functionality on VIPRION chassis or blades.
• AAM does not support deduplication functionality on vCMP platforms, or VIPRION chassis or blades.

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.

VE considerations

This version of the software is supported in the following configurations. For a list of VE hypervisor support, see the Virtual Edition and Supported Hypervisors Matrix.

Memory: 12 GB or more

All licensable module-combinations may be run on BIG-IP Virtual Edition (VE) guests provisioned with 12 GB or more of memory.

Memory: 8 GB

The following guidelines apply to VE guests configured with 8 GB of memory.

• No more than three modules should be provisioned together.

Memory: Less than 8 GB and more than 4 GB

The following guidelines apply to VE guests provisioned with less than 8 GB and more than 4 GB of memory.

• 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.

Memory: 4 GB or less

The following guidelines apply to VE 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.
• ASM should not be provisioned, except as Dedicated

BIG-IP device configuration for Layer 2 transparency

This release includes a new virtual wire configuration object, which enables you to add a BIG-IP device to the network in-line to manage bi-directional network traffic transparently at Layer 2.

Support for Bidirectional Forwarding Detection protocol

When managing VXLAN tunnels using the Open vSwitch Database (OVSDB) management protocol to communicate with a software-defined networking (SDN) controller, you can now enable the Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) protocol. With this protocol, the system can detect the failure of an active service node and remove the node from the algorithm used for forwarding broadcast packets.

Support for IPv6 address format for remote RADIUS authentication servers

When configuring the BIG-IP system to store BIG-IP user accounts on a remote RADIUS authentication server, you can now specify the RADIUS server name as an IPv4 address, an IPv6 address, or a fully-qualified domain name (FQDN).

Additional F5 platform support for BIG-IP multi-tenancy

The i11000 Series platform now supports Virtual Clustered Multiprocessing (vCMP) to provide the ability to create multiple BIG-IP guests on the system.

Performance optimization for TCP traffic

A BIG-IP system administrator can now control the number of acknowledgements (ACKs) that the system receives as a result of setting the PSH bit in a TCP header. Reducing the number of ACKs that the system receives can improve system performance.

Test button for LTM health monitors

In-TMM monitoring for TCP, HTTP, and HTTPS

In this release, when creating an HTTPS monitor, there is a new SSL Profile setting. You can select an SSL profile from an available list of all serverssl profiles in the BIG-IP system, or accept the default (None) to specify no SSL profile. When selecting an SSL profile, the HTTPS connections are handled directly by the BIG-IP system's data plane processes (TMM). This improves HTTPS Monitor scaling on systems with four or more CPU cores and allows the HTTPS Health Monitor to use SSL acceleration hardware. This includes TCP, TCP Half-Open, ICMP Gateway, HTTP, and HTTPS monitors, which may now run within tmm, saving performance.

Log subscribers Identity (MSISDN) with translation log events

This release adds support for optional subscriber ID logging when creating various logging profiles, including LSN, and local/custom Network Firewall.

Configuration load independent of licensing

Starting with this release, if a BIG-IP device is not licensed and you attempt to load a configuration, the BIG-IP configuration loads, but the system indicates it is OFFLINE, and will not pass traffic until you apply a license. You need to either add the appropriate license, or remove the configuration elements for the module that is not licensed.

Routing Configuration Integration (RCI) for BGP and BFD

Dynamic routing protocols, BGP and BFD, can now be configured via tmsh and iControl REST. When enabling RCI, ZebOS imish is in a Read-Only state.

BIG-IP TMOS remote TCPDump

BIG-IP 13.1.0 now allows TCPDump to send packets over a GRE tunnel to a remote client.

Brute Force Attacks Protection

The new functionalities ensure that a legitimate user will be able to log in even if the user account is under a brute force attack.

There is a new brute force reporting screen that shows the status of all login pages. For each attack there is information about mitigated sources and, in the case of a credentials stuffing attack, the leaked user names.

ScaleN and active-active mode on High Availability deployments

F5 Access Policy Manager now deploys services in any one traffic group. Within that traffic group, APM operates in Active/Standby mode. APM is supported in an N+M configuration with up to 7 standby participants. Identical hardware models must be used. Active/Standby status of BIG-IP participants in traffic groups without APM services do not impact this feature.

APM Traffic Group Support

Allows APM services to be in any single traffic group, rather than only in Traffic-Group-1.

OpenID Connect support for OAuth resource client and server

F5 Access Policy Manager now supports OpenID Connect (OIDC) for OAuth client and resource server features. OpenID provides enhancements to the client application access control rules. This feature has three scenarios:

• Protect enterprise resources.
• Use BIG-IP APM as a stateful resource server.
• Use BIG-IP APM as a stateless resource server.

JSON Web Token

The F5 Access Policy Manager OAuth 2.0 infrastructure now supports stateless authentication. The OAuth resource server can now validate the incoming JSON Web Token (JWT) and provide access control checks based on the token's content without contacting the Authorization Server. This feature has three scenarios:

• Protecting enterprise resources with stateless authentication using JWT tokens.
• BIG-IP APM As OAuth client and resource server.
• BIG-IP APM As OAuth client and resource server using ROPC Grant.

Decoupling desktop Edge Clients from the BIG-IP system

You can now download and update a single ISO package containing APM client packages for Windows, Mac, and Linux

APM Kerberos SSO enhancements

Kerberos SSO has schema changes supporting UPN suffixes as well as enabling and disabling UPN. Kerberos now also has improved credentials caching.

Support for additional Endpoint Checks

You can now run additional Endpoint Checks that require admin privileges. This feature is supported on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh systems. This allows Windows Hard Disk Encryption Checks for Win10, and Software Patch on Mac.

Native application tunnels support for Linux and MAC

An F5 Access Policy Manager native application allows application tunnels on Linux and Macintosh operating systems. Applications such as browsers, SSH clients, and RDP clients have controlled access to a specific backend server.

Network Access support improvements

This release provides improved ability to support the Network Access feature.

APM as an ADFS proxy

F5 Access Policy Manager can now take on the role of an Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) proxy by supporting ADFS-PIP protocol and Microsoft ADFS 3.0 (on Windows Server 2012 R2) and 4.0 (on Windows Server 2016).

Microsoft Intune device posture check

F5 can check with Microsoft Intune device enrollment and compliance posture for iOS and Android devices before allowing access.

Microsoft OFBA support

F5 Access Policy Manager now authenticates native Microsoft Office applications access to SharePoint. APM no longer requires persistent cookies and prior web sessions. You can open a SharePoint document from a native Office application, such as Microsoft Word, click the link in the document, and the correct document type opens with authentication using Microsoft OFBA.

Application Access reporting enhancements

F5 Access Policy Manager now has reporting enhancements to provide better user visibility for the Access module of BIG-IQ product.

Replace Citrix StoreFront

VDI profile now supports StoreFront functionality on APM. You can enable or disable the native StoreFront protocol when you configure F5 Access Policy Manager to replace the StoreFront server.

Subscriber awareness

AFM includes support for subscriber awareness allowing you to develop firewall rules that match traffic based on subscriber information. A subscriber is a remote user with a unique subscriber ID.

Scrubbing Profile

AFM now allows you to use a scrubbing profile to exclude, for specific route domains, VLANs that should be exempt from scrubbing (in case of DoS attacks).

DoS Protection Enhancements

Several enhancements improve DoS protection in AFM. DoS profiles can be attached to virtual servers with the name *, meaning any. More vectors can be configured so that the system automatically determines appropriate threshold values (Fully Automatic). A partially automatic setting also lets you manually set threshold values, yet let the system perform mitigation as needed (Manual Detection/Auto Mitigation). In the Device Protection properties, you can disable DoS vectors globally if they are not relevant for your network configuration. Additional internal enhancements improve the effectiveness of DoS protection in both hardware and software.

Dynamic DoS vectors

For Device Network DoS and virtual Server Network DoS, you can now configure the system to detect and mitigate Dynamic Signatures using L4 Behavioral DoS detection. When configured, the system detects possible DoS threats based on traffic history, and can automatically track and mitigate such threats. This feature has been enhanced to include DNS and ICMP protocols.

New Firewall NAT policy rule options

This release provides new options for Route Advertisement and Proxy ARP in the NAT policy rule. Customizable log options for NAT events include the subscriber identity, the ability to specify what to log, and what delimiter to use.

Debugging features

AFM can now provide visibility into what traffic is being dropped by the BIG-IP system, what is happening to the traffic, and this information enhances packet tracing. You can have the system redirect dropped packets to a specific VLAN, and log them while collecting statistics needed for debugging.

Protocol Anomaly Inspection

In the Protocol Security section, you can configure inspection profiles to examine traffic for protocol inspection items and compliance with protocols. Protocol inspection items are arranged in categories by the service type. You can assign groups of protocol inspection items by service (such as DNS, HTTP, SIP, and so on). You can also add valid Snort signatures to a service. You can assign protocol inspection items to a firewall rule, or directly to a virtual server.

Extended information about DoS attack system impact

Enhanced filtering capabilities of system statistics

Enhanced overview of system CPU activity

Extended information about network requests

Extended data exporting capabilities

Improved GUI response time

PEM support for DHCP Lease Query

This feature adds the capability to initiate a DHCP session for unknown subscribers and also recreates PEM sessions in a BIG-IP PEM restart scenario. When the packet flows are received which do not have existing PEM sessions, PEM uses DHCP lease query (by IP address) to communicate with the DHCP servers. PEM obtains DHCP lease information to create new PEM sessions. IPv4 and IPv6 is are both supported.

Integrated support for DHCPv4 Relay Chaining Support

PEM can function as a DHCP relay agent and there is now support for load balancing DHCP sessions while being able to leverage DHCP for subscriber awareness.

SPAN port support for PEM

PEM can now operate on mirrored traffic. PEM can be inserted non-intrusively in the network for reporting or analytics. Classification and reporting PEM actions are the only ones supported in this mode. This feature is supported on a subset of platforms but not on VE or GUI.

Improved malware detection

Improvements in Device-ID stickiness

Improvements in anti-reverse engineering of the FPS JavaScript

Improvements in Full AJAX Encryption

Full AJAX encryption is now possible on URLs that use JSON format for submitting data.

Improvements in the FPS GUI

Changes to FPS rules

Improved support of old web browsers

FPS performance was improved to avoid page crashing in old versions of Internet Explorer (IE 6-8) and to shorten loading time in all browsers.

Reusing Licenses

You can now revoke a license from a running instance of BIG-IP VE, and then use that license on another BIG-IP VE.

NIC Teaming for Increased Bandwidth and Link Redundancy

NIC Teaming is supported on all existing NICs supported by F5 in VMWare and KVM Hypervisors. To configure NIC teaming, use the BIG-IP trunking feature.

More vCPUs Supported for High Performance BIG-IP VE Licenses

You can now use as many as 24 vCPUs with BIG-IP VE.

VMXNET3 is Default Driver in VMware

BIG-IP VE now has a native VMXNET3 driver (unic is no longer needed). Because of this, dataplane interfaces are no longer as 'ethN' (with Linux tools like ifconfig, ethconfig, and ip).

Disk Space Changes

The disk space for the 2-slot Better/Best image is now 82 GB; previously it was 139 GB. An additional 20 GB is provided to support the AAM module. If you are not running AAM, you can remove this extra 20 GB. A new 1-slot Better/Best image with 60 GB is available for non-cloud hypervisors. An additional 20G is also provided for AAM and can be removed.

Use VMware Tools to Set Management IP Address and Root/Admin Passwords

You can now use tools like the Common OVF Tool, the VMware OVF tool, or another tool of your choice to set the management IP address and root / admin passwords for BIG-IP VE. You can use these tools before, during, or after deployment.

Google Cloud Multi-NIC Deployments

You can now use a template to deploy BIG-IP VE with multiple NICs in Google Cloud Platform.

Google Cloud Hourly Licensing

Hourly licensing is now supported up to 5 Gbps and the BIG-IP VE does not need internet access to be licensed.

AWS IC Marketplace Now Available

AWS IC Marketplace is now available for customers that need the security of a data center with no access from IC cloud to the public internet and likely no encrypted (or other data) may leave the network. Current offerings are BYOL and hourly licenses in 25M, 200M, and 1G throughputs. Support is available with U.S. national support only.

Azure Stack Support

You can now deploy a single-NIC BIG-IP VE in the Azure Stack environment..

BIG-IP i11000 Series Platform

This release provides support for the new BIG-IP i11000 platform. For more information, see Platform Guide: i5000/i7000/i10000/i11000 Series.

AOM Unique Device ID added to Licensing

This release includes the AOM device ID licensing feature, which ties the software license to a unique identifier in the hardware. This feature is available on BIG-IP iSeries and BIG-IP standard series platforms. Note that if you need to downgrade to an earlier version after installing version 13.1.0, you will have to install the earlier version of BIG-IP software and then open an SR so that F5 Support can allow the reactivation of your key to work on the older version of BIG-IP software. You can then follow the normal license activation process to activate your license. For more information, see BIG-IP System: Essentials or K7752: Licensing the BIG-IP system

Enhanced Platform Diagnostics

In this release, Platform Diagnostics includes enhancements to the platform_diag and platform_check tests. For more information, see F5 Platforms: Platform Diagnostics.

Multi-tenant FIPS support on vCMP systems

In this release, a 10350 FIPS platform includes a FIPS hardware security module (HSM) enabled with single-root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV). With SR-IOV and Virtual Clustered Multiprocessing (vCMP) provisioned on the system, you can offer FIPS multi-tenancy for guests that must manage FIPS-related application traffic. This feature allows a vCMP host administrator to create multiple virtual HSMs, or FIPS partitions, on the HSM to provide each guest with dedicated cores and FIPS key storage.

Support for TurboFlex Profile and PAYG Feature Selections

This release includes updates to the Configuration utility and TMOS Shell (tmsh) to enable you to switch TurboFlex Profiles based on your needs. For more information, see F5 Platforms: TurboFlex Profiles.

Guaranteed FIX-LL Hardware Flows (Early Access)

This release provides early access to the hardware-optimized FIX Low Latency (FIX-LL) feature on BIG-IP i5000/i7000/i10000 Series platforms and VIPRION B4450 blades. If you encounter any problems with this functionality, please contact your F5 Networks representative. Resolution of any software defects found in this version might appear in a future release.

Trusted Platform Module (TPM) Support (Early Access)

BIG-IP iSeries systems and VIPRION B4450 blades include a TPM 2.0 security device that implements security functions as defined by the Trusted Computing Group (TCG). In this release, these systems now support the use of the TPM measurement function to establish a hardware-based chain of trust at system start up. This verifies that firmware (BIOS) is authentic and has not been tampered with by a malicious user. This feature is highly manual in this release and should be considered Early Access functionality. It will be automated and more layers of operating system and software will be included in future releases.

Sample installation command

The following command installs version 13.0.0 to volume 3 of the main hard drive.

tmsh install sys software image BIGIP-13.0.0.0.0.1645.iso volume HD1.3

Upgrading from version 11.x or later

When you upgrade from version 11.x or later, you use the Software Management screens in the Configuration utility to complete these steps. To open the Software Management screens, in the navigation pane of the Configuration utility, expand System, and click Software Management. For information about using the Software Management screens, see the online help.

Upgrading from versions earlier than 11.x

You cannot roll forward a configuration directly to this version from BIG-IP version 10.x or earlier. You must be running version 11.x (or later) software. For details about upgrading from earlier versions, see the release notes for the associated release.

Upgrading to 4th element versions from versions earlier than 11.5.0

You cannot directly upgrade from pre-11.5.0 versions (e.g., v11.4.x, v11.2.x, etc.) to any 4th element version (e.g., v12.1.3.1, v13.1.0.1, etc.). Direct upgrade to 4th element versions is supported only from v11.5.0 and later. For pre-11.5.0 versions, you must first upgrade to v11.5.0 or later. The recommended upgrade path is from v11.4.1 to v12.1.3, and then to v12.1.3.1. For details about upgrading to those versions, see the release notes for the associated release.

Automatic firmware upgrades

If this version includes new firmware for your specific hardware platform, after you install and activate this version, the system might reboot additional times to perform all necessary firmware upgrades.

Upgrading to Fraud Protection Service (FPS) 13.1.0

• When upgrading to FPS 13.1.0 from any BIG-IP version (13.0 and earlier) you should be aware of the following:
  1. The standard FPS Data Manipulation Check is disabled for URL parameters that are marked with both the attributes Substitute Value and Check Data Manipulation.
  2. The Route to Pool user-defined FPS rule has been deprecated and replaced with the Redirect to URL FPS rule, using the URL /changeme.
  3. Real Time Encryption is disabled on URLs using a custom encryption function.
  4. The settings for the location of the FPS Main JavaScript have moved from the profile level to the URL level. For profiles with more than one URL, these settings are applied on all URLs in the profile.
     Note: If upgrading from BIG-IP 12.1.2-hf1-BIG-IP 13.0 (but not including 13.0.0) and you enabled the antifraud.internalconfig.flag1 database variable to allow using multiple FPS JavaScript location settings for multiple URLs in a profile, when upgrading to BIG-IP 13.1.0 the first location settings in the list will applied to all URLs in the profile.
  5. The following Phishing Detection settings have moved from the profile level to the URL level:
     • Location of CSS Link Injection (previously called Inject CSS Link)
     • Location of Phishing Inline JavaScript and Image Injection (previously called Inject Phishing Inline JavaScript and Image)
     • Location of CSS Element Injection (previously called Inject CSS Element)
     For profiles with more than one URL, these settings are applied on all URLs in the profile.
  6. In FPS 13.1.0, a valid Fingerprint URL Location (called Fingerprint JavaScript Location in BIG 13.0.0 and earlier versions) is non-empty, starts with ‘/’, and ends with .html. When upgrading to FPS 13.1.0, any Fingerprint URL Location that differs from this syntax is changed to /changeme.html.
• When upgrading to BIG-IP 13.1.0 from BIG-IP earlier versions, HTTP request methods GET and POST on URL parameters are deprecated. Instead, the Search In field for parameters that used these methods is set as follows:
  • For parameters that had the GET method, Search In is set to Query String.
  • For parameters that had the POST method, Search In is set to Payload.
• When upgrading to FPS 13.1.0 from BIG-IP 12.0.0 or 12.1.0, you should delete the mobile security alerts URL (typically /rstats) and the alert routing iRule on all mobile security profiles.
• When upgrading to FPS 13.1.0 from BIG-IP 11.6.x, 12.0.0, or 12.1.0, a user-defined malware type is automatically created by the system that contains the malware detection configuration from the previous BIG-IP version. The name of this malware type is general.

WebSafe Dashboard Compatibility

MobileSafe Compatibility

Upgrade warnings and notes

The Application Security Manager supports .ucs files from versions 10.1.0 and later of the Application Security Manager. Additionally, you may import policies exported from versions 10.1.0 and later of the Application Security Manager.

Warning: With the introduction of the Local Traffic Policies feature in BIG-IP version 11.4.0, HTTP Class iRule events and commands are no longer available. If you plan to upgrade to 11.4.0 or later, and your configuration contains an iRule that uses an HTTP class iRule event or command, please read K14381: HTTP Class iRule events and commands are no longer available in BIG-IP 11.4.0 and later.

Warning: Local Traffic Policies do not support regular expressions for matching. While the upgrade process is able to migrate simple glob expressions, manual administrator intervention is required in order to ensure that the policies are properly configured. If you plan to upgrade to 11.4.0 or later, and your configuration contains regular expressions or glob expressions, please read K14409: The HTTP Class profile is no longer available in BIG-IP 11.4.0 and later.

Important: The system creates its internal cookie in versions 10.2.4 and later (including all versions of 11.x) differently than in versions prior to 10.2.4. As a result, while upgrading your system from a version prior to 10.2.4 to version 10.2.4 or later, the system will produce the Modified ASM Cookie violation for existing browser sessions. If the security policy has the Modified ASM Cookie violation enabled and set to block traffic when this violation occurs, after upgrading to version 10.2.4 or later, the system will block traffic to the web application. However, since the TS cookie is a session cookie, the system will block traffic only until the browser session ends (the end-user restarts the browser). To prevent the security policy from blocking traffic until the end-user’s browser is restarted, before upgrading to version 10.2.4 or later, we recommend you disable the security policy from blocking the Modified ASM Cookie violation, upgrade, and wait long enough to allow all users to restart their browsers (two weeks are expected to be enough). After enabling the violation, we recommend you monitor the logs. If the Modified ASM Cookie violation appears, consider disabling the violation again for a longer period of time, or communicate to the users to restart their browsers.

Exporting Logs

Layer 7

In version 11.4.0, local traffic policies replace HTTP Classes. When you create an ASM security policy, the system automatically creates a default Layer 7 local traffic policy. Note the following changes that occur to your system after upgrading from a version prior to 11.4.0:

• A Layer 7 local traffic policy is created and the HTTP class is removed. If the HTTP Class name is different than the name of the security policy, upon upgrade, the system changes the name of the security policy to the name of the HTTP Class.
• Security policies are now in folders (partitioned) like pools and virtual servers. Upon upgrade, the system places security policies in the folder to which the HTTP Class belonged. The system places security policies that were inactive in the /Common folder.
• iRules that use HTTP Class do not work here. Users must manually change the HTTP Class part of the iRule to Policy after the upgrade.

ASM cookie security

As a result of changes made to the signing of ASM cookies, performing a clean upgrade may result in cookie violations and blocked traffic. To prevent these, F5 recommends that you perform the following actions before upgrading:

• Disable the modified domain cookie violation, and re-enable it only after at least 24 hours have passed.
• If you do not have a wildcard cookie, before the upgrade add an ASM allowed cookie to the security policy, with the name TS*.
• Have all clients restart their browsers.

After upgrading, users must synchronize their Cookie Protection settings in the following cases:

• Systems that share traffic but are NOT in the same device group
• Systems from different versions that share traffic, even if they are in the same device group

Cookie signature validation

After upgrading, the system performs the following:

• Turns on staging for all Allowed cookies
• Applies signature checks on existing Allowed cookies
• Adds a * wildcard Allowed cookie even if the user did not have on previously Upgrading to version 11.3.0 or later

Web scraping

There was a check box for enabling web scraping that was removed in version 11.3.0.

• When you upgrade from versions 11.0.0 through 11.2.x, if the check box is enabled, the new Bot Detection setting has the option Alarm and Block enabled. If the check box is not enabled, the value is Off.
• When you upgrade from versions prior to 11.0.0 (where there was no enable flag), the Bot Detection setting is based on the blocking check boxes for web scraping:
  • If the global Block check box is enabled, the value is Alarm and Block.
  • If the global Block check box is disabled, and the global Alarm check box is enabled, the value is Alarm.
  • If both Alarm and Block check boxes are disabled, the value is Off.

Brute Force

In versions prior to 11.3.0, if the Dynamic Brute Force Protection Operation Mode was Blocking, and the security policy’s Enforcement Mode was Transparent, the system blocked brute force attacks. In order to keep functionality after upgrading, the system continues to block brute force attacks if you upgrade to versions 11.3.0 or later, under these circumstances. However, in versions 11.3.0 and later, the functionality changed so that if the security policy’s Enforcement Mode is Transparent, so the system does not block brute force attacks even if the Dynamic Brute Force Protection Operation Mode setting is Alarm and Block (previously Blocking).

In version 13.1 the session-based and dynamic brute force protections are discontinued and replaced with source-based brute force protection. When upgrading:

• Source-based mitigation will be set to Alarm and CAPTCHA for Username, Device IP and Source ID.
• Dynamic mitigation will be set to Alarm and CAPTCHA.
• Client Side Integrity Bypass Mitigation will be set to Alarm and CAPTCHA.
• CAPTCHA Bypass Mitigation will be set to Alarm and CAPTCHA.
• Detection and prevention duration will be derived from previous values.
• Enforcement of both the source-based and distributed brute force protections depends on the Blocking settings of the Brute Force: Maximum login attempts are exceeded violation.
• The Learning flag for Brute Force: Maximum login attempts are exceeded violation is discontinued.
• The Unlimited value for Prevention Duration is discontinued.

DoS profiles

In versions 11.3.0 and later, DoS profiles are assigned to virtual servers. Previously, they were assigned to security policies.

• Upon upgrading DoS Profiles from versions prior to 11.3.0, all active security policies have their DoS settings migrated and assigned to the virtual server associated with the HTTP Class. If a virtual server had more than one HTTP Class assigned to it, it inherits the settings of the last in the list.
• If you have a disabled DoS profile in a version prior to 11.3.0, and upgrade, after the upgrade the system automatically assigns the DoS profile to a virtual server. As a result, even though the system does not perform DoS protection, it still collects statistics, which impacts the system’s performance. To work around this issue, if you have a disabled DoS profile assigned to a virtual server, to improve system performance you should remove its association from the virtual server. (ID 405211)
• We do not support exporting and importing DoS profiles.

Logging Profiles

In versions 11.3.0 and later, logging profiles are assigned to virtual servers. Previously, they were assigned to security policies. Upon upgrading logging profiles from versions prior to 11.3.0, all active security policies have their logging profile settings migrated and assigned to the virtual server associated with the HTTP Class. If a virtual server had more than one HTTP Class assigned to it, it inherits the settings of the last in the list.

XFF configuration (ID 405312)

In versions prior to 11.3.0, DoS profiles used the Trust XFF setting that was a security policy setting. The Trust XFF setting was renamed Accept XFF, and moved from a security policy property to a property of the HTTP profile. If you upgrade a DoS profile and a security policy with the Trust XFF setting enabled, after the upgrade, the new XFF configuration setting is disabled. If you want the DoS profile to continue trusting XFF, navigate to Local Traffic > Profiles > Services > HTTP > Properties screen, and enable the Accept XFF setting.

IP address whitelist

In version 11.2 we unified various whitelists for Policy Builder trusted IP addresses, and anomaly whitelists (DoS Attack Prevention, Brute Force Attack Prevention, and Web Scraping Detection) into a single list. When you upgrade, these separate lists are unified to a single whitelist (called the IP Address Exceptions List).

Security policy status after UCS installation

After you install a .ucs (user configuration set) file that was exported from version 10.1.0 or later, the system does not automatically apply changes that you made, but did not apply, to the security policies. The system enforces the web application according to the settings of the last set active security policy. However, the system preserves any changes to the current edited security policy, and marks the security policy as modified [M] if the changes have not been applied.

Running Application Security Manager on a vCMP system

If you are running Application Security Manager on a vCMP system: For best performance, F5 recommends configuring remote logging to store ASM logs remotely on Syslog servers rather than locally.