BIG-IP Template Creation - IP Pools/Static (VMware)

Description

In this lab, we will create templates used for provisioning BIG-IP with Static IPs from BIG-IQ CM. Refer to below AskF5 links if you need further details.

AskF5 Reference

F5 Clouddocs Reference

Step 1: Download BIG-IP ova image

  1. Access https://downloads.f5.com/
  2. Navigate to your desired BIG-IP version and from the Virtual-Edition list of images, select the BIGIP-<version>.ALL_1SLOT-vmware.ova. In test environments, this image will help to save on disk space.

Step 2: Deploy and Boot OVA file

  1. Right click the host or folder and select Deploy OVF Template…

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  2. Select Local file > click Choose Files > select the downloaded ova file

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  3. Specify a unique name and target location for the template

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  4. Select the destination compute resource for the template

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  5. Review details

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  6. Review EULA and check I accept all license agreements.

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  7. Select 4 CPUs/8192 MB RAM (this can be adjusted as needed depending on what you provision and configure on BIG-IP)

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  8. Leave default storage configuration

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  9. For networks, ensure that the Management NIC is associated with the network that has DHCP disabled and confirm other NIC networks. On BIG-IQ you must then configure IP Pools for these networks. You can ignore the IP allocation settings

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  10. Review all settings and click Finish to deploy

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  11. Power on device

Step 2: Prepare BIG-IP to be a clone instance, and shutdown

AskF5 Reference

  1. Open the web console and log into device using default credentials (root/default). Change password to a strong password as required from v14.1.0

  2. Delete f5-rest-device-id directory file. This forces the REST device ID files to be uniquely generated the next time you start the clone

    rm -f /config/f5-rest-device-id

  3. Delete the BIG-IP VE clone instance-generated SSH keys

    rm -f /config/ssh/ssh_host_*
    rm -f /shared/ssh/ssh_host_*

  4. (BIG-IP 14.1.0 and later only) Reset the device administrative account passwords to their default values

    echo "root:default" | chpasswd
    echo "admin:admin" | chpasswd

  5. From tmsh prompt, disable DHCP for management IP and save configuration

    modify sys global-settings mgmt-dhcp disable
    save sys config

  6. Power off the BIG-IP VE clone template instance

    shutdown -h now

This completes the BIG-IP Template Creation - IP Pools/Static.