BIG-IP H ARDWARE AND D ESIGN E XERCISES E XERCISE 4.1 – BIG-IP H ARDWARE E XERCISE
Required – access to F5 hardware platform
Estimated completion time: 30 minutes
TASK 1 – Connecting to a Serial Console on BIG-IP Hardware
Connect to a serial console on BIG-IP hardware, set the Management IP address and access the GUI.
Connect your serial cable to the BIG-IP hardware supplied by the instructor.
→NOTE: If you don’t have a serial cable, skip to TASK 3.
Open a terminal emulator program such as Putty to the serial console with 19200 baud rate.
Log in to the BIG-IP system with Username: root Password: default
At the CLI prompt, type: config
Configure the management interface using the following information (where X is station number) : Auto Config No
IP Address 192.168.X.31 Network Mask 255.255.0.0 Default Route None
Change your PC’s Local Connection IP Address to 192.168.X.20 with Netmask of 255.255.0.0.
Plug a network cable between your PC and the Management network port of your BIG-IP.
Verify using a browser that you can connect to https://192.168.X.31 . You don’t need to log in.
Open a terminal emulator program such as Putty and verify you can connect using SSH to 192.168.X.31.
Exercise 4.1 – BIG-IP Hardware Exercise
TASK 2 – Setting an IP Address for AOM or SCCP on BIG-IP Hardware
While connected to a serial console on BIG-IP hardware toggle to AOM or SCCP and set IP Address.
With the serial cable connected and the terminal emulator program.
Issue the following key sequence: First key: ESC Second key: (
You should now be within the AOM or SCCP console screen similar to below.
Choose option “N” for the Network Configurator.
Configure the AOM / SCCP IP Address using the following information (where X is station number) :
Use DHCP n
IP Address 192.168.X.35 Network Mask 255.255.0.0 Example for station #1 shown below.
Exercise 4.1 – BIG-IP Hardware Exercise
Note: If you don’t have a Serial Console setup, start your lab here…
With a network cable plugged between your PC and the Management network port of your BIG-IP, open a terminal emulator program such as Putty and connect using SSH to 192.168.X.35.
Log in to the BIG-IP system using the following credentials: Username: root Password: default
At the CLI prompt, type: hostconsh followed by the Enter key. You should be at a BIG-IP prompt.
Get back to AOM / SCCP console by issuing the key sequence: ESC then (
TASK 3 – Rebooting to the EUD
While connected using ssh to AOM / SCCP, reboot the host and select EUD at the grub menu.
With a network cable plugged between your PC and the Management network port of your BIG-IP, open a terminal emulator program such as Putty and connect using SSH to 192.168.X.35.
Choose option “1” Connect to Host subsystem and notice you are now back to BIG-IP prompt.
Log in to the BIG-IP system with Username: root and Password: default
At the CLI prompt, type:
reboot
Notice you do not lose your ssh connection even though the host is rebooting. This is because your ssh connection is to AOM / SCCP, not the host.
Pay close attention and when at the grub boot menu use arrow keys to select End User Diagnostics. By default, you will have 4 seconds to use the arrow keys before the default boot option is selected.
Different versions of EUD will have different menu options or tests. Normally F5 Support would have a customer select option “A” Run all System Tests. Do not run all tests as the RAM test takes over 1 hour.
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Exercise 4.1 – BIG-IP Hardware Exercise
If you want to run one of the tests, choose either the Sensor Report or SSL Test. The output should be sent to your console screen so you should see the output of the test.
When finished, choose option Q to Quit EUD and Reboot the System.
When you reach the grub menu this time let the system boot to the default boot location of v10.2.4.
If there is time, continue with v10 exploration lab below (Task 4).
TASK 4 (Optional) – Exploring BIG-IP v10
Connect to the BIG-IP v10 GUI and explore Local Traffic, Network and System settings.
Plug a network cable between your PC and the Management network port of your BIG-IP.
Using a browser connect to https://192.168.X.31 and log in using the following credentials:
Username: admin Password: admin
Check Network / Self IP in the GUI and verify you have a configured Self IP of 10.10.X.31 / 16.
Check Network / VLANs in the GUI and verify the external VLAN is configured for interface 1.1.
Change your PC’s Local Connection IP Address to 10.10.X.20 with netmask of 255.255.0.0.
Move the network cable from the Management port to the 1.1 interface port of your BIG-IP.
Exercise 4.1 – BIG-IP Hardware Exercise
Check Local Traffic / Profiles in the GUI and select several to look at their options.
Check System / License in the GUI and look at the options for your BIG-IP.
Check System / Resource Provisioning in the GUI and look at the options for your BIG-IP.
Check System / High Availability in the GUI and look at the options for your BIG-IP. Notice there is no option for Device Management. In v10 this was all configured under System / High Availability.
Explore other areas of the v10 GUI to become familiar with differences to v11.
Open a terminal emulator program such as Putty and connect using SSH to 10.10.X.31.
Find the log file containing output of the last time an EUD test was run. Depending on platform and BIG-IP version this file could be located at one of the following locations:
/eud.log
/shared/log/eud.log /shared/TestRPT.log
Look at this file using the more or less command: less <filename>
When finished, power off your BIG-IP by typing: poweroff