Applies To:
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F5 SSL Orchestrator
- 14.1.2
Summary:
This release note documents the version 5.5 release of F5 SSL Orchestrator.
Note: If you are installing or upgrading to SSL Orchestrator 5.5, you must also install BIG-IP 14.1.2.1. Likewise, if you are installing BIG-IP 14.1.2.1 and you plan to use SSL Orchestrator, you must also install or upgrade to SSL Orchestrator 5.5.
Contents:
- Platform support
- Guided Configuration browser support
- User documentation for this release
- Features in SSL Orchestrator
- Fixes
- Install and upgrade SSL Orchestrator
- Contacting F5
- Legal notices
Platform support
SSL Orchestrator standalone base license is supported on the following platforms:
| Platform name | Platform ID |
|---|---|
| i2800 | C120 |
| i5800 | C121 |
| i10800 | C122 |
| i11800 Discovery Extreme | C123 |
| i15800 Endeavour | D116 |
High Performance F5 SSL Orchestrator Virtual Edition (VE) options:
|
Z100 |
If SSL Orchestrator is the standalone base license installed on your system, you can add the following modules:
- URLF Filtering (subscription)
- IPI (subscription)
- Network HSM
- Access Policy Manager (APM)
- Secure Web Gateway (SWG)
- Advanced Routing
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) base license with SSL Orchestrator as an add-on is supported on any available iSeries and Bourne platforms (not including VIPRION):
| Platform name |
|---|
| 2000, i2000 |
| 4000, i4000 |
| 5000, i5000 |
| 7000, i7000 |
| 10000, i10000 |
| 11000, i11000 |
| 12000 (Bourne) |
| i15000 |
Guided Configuration browser support
The Guided Configuration acts as the template for SSL Orchestrator. This release supports the following browsers and versions for use with Guided Configuration for SSL Orchestrator:
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 11.x - Only 32-bit browsers are supported.
- Mozilla Firefox 55.x
- Google Chrome 61.x
User documentation for this release
For a comprehensive list of documentation that is relevant to this release, refer to the SSL Orchestrator Documentation page.
Features in SSL Orchestrator
F5 recommends you review the entire SSL Orchestrator release notes and setup guide prior to upgrading and configuring a deployment.
Guided Configuration for SSL Orchestrator
Guided configuration is meant to guide you through setting up a particular use case on the SSL Orchestrator system. Each template requests minimal input and provides contextual help to assist users during setup. The current version of the Guided Configuration is displayed on the landing page. When a later upgrade becomes available, you can use the available link next to the version number to download it from downloads.f5.com then upload and install Guided Configuration for SSL Orchestrator on BIG-IP. Prior to installing and upgrading to the latest version of SSL Orchestrator, ensure that you read the release notes and setup guide for any prerequisites, task details, or troubleshooting and recovery steps during installation or upgrade.
SSL Orchestrator Topologies
SSL Orchestrator configuration topologies define the type of traffic (transparent or explicit) and the direction of traffic flow (inbound or outbound) you wish to inspect. These deployment settings, which can be modified as needed without undeploying a configuration, are complemented by SSL management settings that assist you in defining inbound decryption and outbound decryption, setting your service types (such as HTTP, ICAP, Layer 2/Layer 3 inline, and receive-only/TAP services) and creating your service policies by defining per-request and per-session policy settings that can be managed through a virtual policy editor.
- Outbound transparent proxy
- Outbound explicit proxy
- Inbound reverse proxy
- Outbound layer 2
- Inbound layer 2
Licensing and Provisioning for SSL Orchestrator Access Integration
Updated SSL Orchestrator Setup Utility with resource provisioning capabilities for licensed and unlicensed modules.
Multi-Layered Security
In order to solve specific security challenges, security administrators are accustomed to manually chaining together multiple point products, creating a bare-bones “security chain” consisting of multiple services. A typical chain may include components like Data Leak Prevention (DLP) scanners, Web Application Firewalls (WAF), Intrusion Prevention and Detection Systems (IPS and IDS), Malware Analysis tools, Secure Web Gateways (SWG), and more. In this model, all user sessions are provided the same level of security, as this “daisy chain” of services is hard-wired.
Virtual Clustered Multiprocessing (vCMP)
SSL Orchestrator supports Virtual Clustered Multiprocessing (vCMP) to provision and manage multiple hosted instances of the BIG-IP software on a single hardware platform.
Classification Engine
Classification Engine provides a rich set of methods based on context to dynamically determine how best to optimize the flow through the security stack. Context can minimally come from the following:
- Source IP/subnet
- Destination IP/subnet
- IP intelligence category - Subscription
- IP geolocation
- Host and domain name
- URL filtering category - Subscription
- Destination port
- Protocol
Other classifiers with greater flexibility are also available in the SSL Orchestrator VPE and with iRules to optimize and evaluate additional information.
Deployment Modes
- Single device mode
- High availability (HA) cluster mode
In addition, the system can detect and transparently handle an explicit proxy between SSL Orchestrator and the internet.
SSL Orchestrator Analytics
SSL Orchestrator analytics provide a customizable view into your SSL Orchestrator statistics, and enable you to flexibly choose the information you want to view based on specified ranges of time that you can select and adjust.
Statistics generated:
- Hit Count
- Client Bytes Out Per Second
- Duration
- Server Bytes In
- Server Bytes In Per Second
- Hit Count Per Second
- Server Bytes Out Per Second
- Client Bytes In
- Client Bytes In Per Second
- Client Bytes Out
- Server Bytes Out
Statistics are generated for the following dimensions:
- Client Cipher Names
- Client Cipher Versions
- Server Cipher Names
- Server Cipher Versions
- Virtual Servers
- Site IP Addresses
- Traffic Types
- Decryption Status
- Policy Actions
- Service Paths
- URL Categories
- Applications
- Application Families
- IP Reputation
- Destination Countries
L7 Application Protocol Settings
SSL Orchestrator supports L7 application protocol settings allowing you to select a protocol to listen for specific traffic (IMAP, SMTPS, POP3, FTP, HTTP) to be processed.
Fixes
| ID number | Description |
|---|---|
| 759595 | SSL Orchestrator cannot open the command history file (/root/.tmsh-history-root) and shows that “permission is denied” when the user deploys or re-deploys any SSL Orchestrator application. SSL Orchestrator will try to find the non-default root admin using the TMSH for proper credentials to pass through REST layer. The resulting behavior is the SSL Orchestrator system will not pass additional parameters for TMSH to not log that command in his history. Fix: Permission is no longer denied when opening the command history after user deploys or re-deploys any SSL Orchestrator application. |
| 760231 | If the decision to Service chain traffic is done based on a CONNECT request (for example, Category Lookup (HTTP Connect tunnel)) and the SSL Forward Proxy Action is set to Bypass, then the data inside the CONNECT tunnel isn’t being sent to TAP and inline services. Fix: The policy concurrent deployment issue that caused the error is fixed so that the service chain used across multiple policies can be properly modified. |
| 776221 | With the SSL Orchestrator system setup in HA mode, having multiple topologies and multiple policies may result with the administrator not being able to remove a service from service chain. This is due to SSL Orchestrator not being able to correctly handle concurrent requests. This behavior may similarly occur when policies are referred to in multiple topologies. Fix: When the system is setup in HA mode with multiple topologies and multiple policies, you can now remove services from the service chain. |
| 778461 | In a SSL Orchestrator HA deployment, when each device updates its own deployment error, it may result in a REST replication mechanism (gossip) conflict. Fix: Only update the status from the ACTIVE device. |
| 786133 | If the management interface of the BIG-IP system is configured with dual IP stack (IPv4 management IP and IPv6 management IP) then SSL Orchestrator may not work properly in a HA environment. When configsync IP is set after modifying management IPs at System > Platform for one device, the managementIp from https://[management-ip]/mgmt/tm/cm/device is not consistent with the managementAddress from https://[management-ip]/mgmt/shared/resolver/device-groups/tm-shared-all-big-ips/devices. The issue does not occur when only modifying the management IP settings after a fresh BIG-IP ISO installation. Fix: Run the following commands using BIG-IP's ssh: Delete the gossip devices restcurl -X DELETE shared/resolver/device-groups/tm-shared-all-big-ips/devices and force gossip to update device information restcurl -X POST -d '{}' tm/shared/bigip-failover-state. |
| 799037 | The SSL Orchestrator HTTP URL does not classify the custom category during the setup when there is no SWG/URLDB provisioned (for example, if the iRule was previously performing category lookups exclusively with SSL traffic but it was amended to check whether or not it is actually HTTPS -- especially in the case of custom category). Fix: If there is no categorization, it will now return “Uncategorized” instead of an empty string. |
| 805989 | The SSL Orchestrator service status monitor freezes the UI when too many services are being configured. When a significant amount of services are configured (30 in the deployed scenario), then the system’s UI slows in response and freezes the UI. This is due to the fact that the current implementation fetches the service status using a polling model and has limited scalability. Fix: A caching mechanism for reporting the service status was added. Subsequently, SSL Orchestrator implements an event driven (subscription) mechanism to update the service status. Now there is no limitation on the number of services. |
| 810545 | SSL Orchestrator deployment fails and Interception Rules are missing. The SSL Orchestrator deployment may unexpectedly fail with the error “interception rule not found” due to the SSL Orchestrator sub-system introducing a new approach. Fix: The old "interception-rules" worker has been removed and the topology deployment logistics have been updated. |
| 811525 | When using SSL Orchestrator, the HTTP URL must be configured without a trailing slash in the custom category or it results in a custom category lookup failure. HTTP URL does not classify the custom category in the setup when there is no SWG and URLDB provisioned. Fix: The custom HTTP URL can now be configured with or without a trailing slash in the custom category lookup. |
| 813249 | SSL Orchestrator’s Security Policy add and modify rule in the UI may become unstable and not work properly (for example, a forward proxy action is reset when security policy rules are moved around while creating security policy). These changes do preserve user choice for forward proxy action, even when additional rules are added, and moved around for proper ordering. Fix: The SSL Forward Proxy Action value of the newly added rule is no longer changed after dragging the rule to the top of the list. |
| 826317 | There is an undefined error in restnoded.log from GeneralSettingsConfigProcessor while printing logger. Fix: Printing logger from GeneralSettingsConfigProcessor no longer triggers an undefined error in restnoded.log. |
| 828809 | SSL Orchestrator re-deployment fails if two topologies have the same, or similar, names (such as one topology being named ABC and the other topology being named ABC123). Fix: Any valid name for a topology is now supported. |
Install and upgrade SSL Orchestrator
Note: If you are installing or upgrading to SSL Orchestrator 5.5, you must also install BIG-IP 14.1.2.1. Likewise, if you are installing BIG-IP 14.1.2.1 and you plan to use SSL Orchestrator, you must also install or upgrade to SSL Orchestrator 5.5.
If you currently have a version of SSL Orchestrator prior to 5.0, or are installing SSL Orchestrator for the first time, refer to the complete installation and upgrade instructions for F5 SSL Orchestrator version 5.5 in the SSL Orchestrator: Setup version 14.1.0-5.0 guide.
If you currently have SSL Orchestrator 5.0 through 5.4 installed, click and follow the SSL Orchestrator RPM upgrade instructions to import the newest 5.5 version.
To install the F5 SSL Orchestrator 5.4 and you do not have an existing SSL Orchestrator add-on license, or a previous version of SSL Orchestrator installed, download the image from downloads.f5.com. For complete step-by-step installation instructions, see the BIG-IP Systems: Upgrading Software guide.
To upgrade to the newest version of SSL Orchestrator from a previous version prior to 5.0, or you have an existing add-on license, follow the recommended upgrade steps found in the SSL Orchestrator recommended upgrade procedure section in the SSL Orchestrator: Setup guide. This procedure walks you through the uninstallation and deletion of existing SSL Orchestrator applications and RPM before installing the new ISO image.
If you do not follow the recommended upgrade procedure to undeploy your previous SSL Orchestrator deployments, as well as uninstall your previous version of the application, further manual steps are required to reset your environment and undeploy the previous version. See the Upgrade from previous SSL Orchestrator versions using the recovery procedure task steps in the SSL Orchestrator: Setup guide based on the previous version of SSL Orchestrator you are upgrading from and your access to the BIG-IP Applications LX menu.
These upgrade steps are required since previously deployed SSL Orchestrator configurations cannot be rolled forward or imported into the new version of SSL Orchestrator. Following one of the recommended upgrade procedures will assist you in preparing your system for a clean installation.
Contacting F5
| North America | 1-888-882-7535 or (206) 272-6500 |
| Outside North America, Universal Toll-Free | +800 11 ASK 4 F5 or (800 11275 435) |
| Additional phone numbers | Regional Offices |
| Web | http://www.f5.com |
| support@f5.com |
Additional resources
You can find additional support resources and technical documentation through a variety of sources.
| F5 Support | Free self-service tools give you 24x7 access to a wealth of knowledge and technical support. Whether it is providing quick answers to questions, training your staff, or handling entire implementations from design to deployment, F5 services teams are ready to ensure that you get the most from your F5 technology. |
| AskF5 Knowledge Base | The storehouse for thousands of knowledgebase articles that help you manage your F5 products more effectively. Whether you want to browse periodically to research a solution, or you need the most recent news about your F5 products, AskF5 is your source. |
| BIG-IP iHealth Diagnostics and BIG-IP iHealth Viewer | BIG-IP iHealth Diagnostics identifies issues, including common configuration problems and known software issues. It also provides solutions and links to more information. With BIG-IP iHealth Viewer, you can see the status of your system at-a-glance, drill down for details, and view your network configuration. |
| F5 DevCentral | Collaborate and share innovations including code samples, new techniques, and other tips, with more than 300,000 F5 users worldwide. DevCentral is the place to ask questions, find solutions, learn to harness the power of F5’s powerful scripting language, iRules, and much more. |
| Communications Preference Center | Here, you can subscribe to a number of communications from F5. For information about the types of notifications F5 provides, see K9970: Subscribing to email notifications regarding F5 products. |
