Applies To:
Show Versions
F5 SSL Orchestrator
- 15.0.0
Summary:
This release note documents the version 6.1 release of F5 SSL Orchestrator.
Contents:
- Platform support
- Guided Configuration browser support
- User documentation for this release
- Features in SSL Orchestrator
- Fixes
- Known issues
- Install and upgrade SSL Orchestrator
- Contacting F5
- Legal notices
Platform support
SSL Orchestrator standalone base license is supported on the following platforms:
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)
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) base license with SSL Orchestrator as an add-on is supported on any available iSeries, Bourne, and VIPRION platforms:
| Platform name |
|---|
| 2000, i2000 |
| 4000, i4000 |
| 5000, i5000 |
| 7000, i7000 |
| 10000, i10000 |
| 11000, i11000 |
| 12000 (Bourne) |
| i15000 |
| Chassis: VPR-24XX, VPR-4800 |
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.
Guided Configuration for SSL Orchestrator TLS 1.3 support
TLS 1.3 support is provided in Guided Configuration for SSL Orchestrator for inbound cases, both clientssl and serverssl, for enhanced performance and security.
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 complimented 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
The Existing Application topology is an inbound topology that allows you to create services, service chains, and security policies and attach them to an existing reverse proxy BIG-IP application.
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 |
|---|---|
| 759303 | SSL Orchestrator configurations result in an error if there is mismatch between the APP block and MCP objects. In result, re-deployment fails. Workaround: Cleanup MCP Objects related to SSL Orchestrator through the UI. Next, cleanup all the APP block using details found in Applications LX fields: Click . Fix: Complete cleanup of the SSL Orchestrator APP block and MCP objects automatically occurs. |
| 778461 | Modifications to a service chain may fail when multiple services are part of a service chain. When HA is deployed or modified in the following ways, you may not be able to modify the service chain definition: deploy two or more services; deploy one (or more) service chains using those services; deploy a policy with that service chain while it is in use; modify the service chain by removing all services (two or more services) or add any other service to service chains. This may also occur on a HA system due to REST database update. Since the REST framework distributes the task across the BIG-IP systems in HA, it may cause an issue when its synchronization mechanism finds objects with same generation number. Workaround: Redeploy the service chain modifications so that it no longer fails. Fix: An update to the state of the deployment for a single device prevents this failure from occurring. |
| 778741 | When you have an explicit proxy with a L3 inline service deployed for the first time it may result in a throughput reduction of up to 18%. The percentage of reduction may vary depending on your current platform. Workaround: Enter non-functional changes to your configuration (for example, modify a description and then redeploy your configuration). Fix: Change the default parent profile to f5-tcp-lan and f5-tcp-wan respectively for both the client side and the server side (do not make any changes to TCP profile attributes). |
| 778865 | After an upgrade, some services may become uneditable. For example, when upgrading from 14.x to 15.0, there is a defect that may cause some services to be unavailable for modification. This affects existing configurations that use certain services and you may not be able to modify some existing services that were previously configured. Fix: Issue is corrected in the 6.1 release. |
| 780821 | If you are upgrading SSL Orchestrator 6.0 over multiple releases (such as upgrading from 5.x to 6.0 to 6.1), you may receive a timeout error. Workaround: Redeploy the configuration so that the error does not again appear. Fix: Issue is corrected in the 6.1 release. |
| 782681 | Some device IPs for a L3/HTTP Proxy service may conflict with the auto-manage network and result in an error even though the device IP correctly sits in the subnet of the auto-manage self IP. Your deployment may fail indicating there are conflicts during self IP creation. This may also occur when deploying in HA and may cause issues with objects created on one box but not the other. In this case you may not be able to deploy the service and the HA box may enter a corrupt state. Workaround: Manually clean up the deployment, change the device IP, and then redeploy. Fix: The error is detected earlier with an option to now change the IP without experiencing a corrupt deployment. |
| 786553 | The SSL Orchestrator deployment fails due to a requested TCP profile not found. When a user frequently switches topology types while creating an app in the topology workflow, deployment may fail due to the requested TCP profile not being found. Workaround: While creating an app in the topology workflow, do not switch the topology type. If you need to change the topology type, cancel the workflow and start the workflow over from the start. Fix: Issue is corrected in the 6.1 release, allowing a user to switch between topology types while creating an app in the topology workflow without causing a deployment error. |
Install and upgrade SSL Orchestrator
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 in the SSL Orchestrator: Setup version 15.0.0-6.0 guide.
If you currently have SSL Orchestrator 5.0 through 5.4 or 6.0 installed, click and follow the SSL Orchestrator RPM upgrade instructions to import the newest 6.1 version.
To install the F5 SSL Orchestrator 6.1 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. The Guided Configuration for SSL Orchestrator 6.0 image is packaged with the F5 BIG-IP 15.0.0 image.
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. |
