Initial BIG-IP Configurations — F5 Pipeline documentation

Initial BIG-IP Configurations

Currently, the BIG-IPs (LTM 1, LTM 2 and GTM) are not licensed and have just a single interface configured.

Please reference the Lab Topology above and ensure the BIG-IPs are configured accordingly.

Using your favorite editor (i.e. VS Code), build a body to send to the Declarative Onboarding API request.

Each BIG-IP should have a seperate onboarding definition and these should be commited back into the repo to store the configuration-as-code.

You will need to configure the below items on each BIG-IP.

  • License (pool from BIG-IQ)
  • NTP Server
  • DNS Server
  • User name and password
  • Provisioning module
  • BIG-IP banner

You WILL NOT have license or configure the self-IPs/VLANs for the BIG-IPs.

DO Configuration Requirements

The BIG-IPs in this lab environment have already been configured with VLANs, self-ips, and licenses. The below configuration items have not been configured on each BIG-IP and will need to be prior to continuing with the lab.

Building the DO Configuration

Using the tool of your choice (i.e. VS Code, VIM, Postman, GitLab Web IDE) create a DO Service Definition that includes the above requirements.

  1. Use the below example DO declaration as a template for configuring the BIG-IP.
  2. Replace the REST {{variables}} with the appropriate value. Use the below standard values in your definition for each BIG-IP as these will not change between device.
    • NTP Server: time.apple.com
    • DNS Server: 8.8.8.8
    • Timezone: UTC
  3. Validate the JSON payload using like jsonlint.com
  4. Save the configuration before moving forward to Lab 2.

Example Onboarding Declaration

Below is an example onboarding definition. In this example, the definition has been built to be used with VS Code’s REST Client and deployed directly via the editor.

{
    "declaration": {
        "schemaVersion": "1.0.0",
        "class": "Device",
        "label": "BIG-IP LTM",
        "Common": {
            "class": "Tenant",
            "hostname": "{{hostname}}",
            "dbvars": {
                "class": "DbVariables",
                "ui.advisory.enabled": false,
                "ui.advisory.color": "green",
                "ui.advisory.text": "/Common/hostname"
            },
            "myDns": {
                "class": "DNS",
                "nameServers": [
                    "{{dns_server}}"
                ],
                "search": [
                    "lab.local"
                ]
            },
            "myNtp": {
                "class": "NTP",
                "servers": [
                    "{{ntp_server}}"
                ],
                "timezone": "{{timezone}}"
            },
            "myProvisioning": {
                "class": "Provision",
                "{{module}}": "nominal"
            }
            "dbvars": {
                "class": "DbVariables",
                "ui.advisory.enabled": true,
                "ui.advisory.color": "{{color}}",
                "ui.advisory.text": "/Common/hostname"
            }
        }
    }
}
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