F5 BigIP Initial Setup and Configuration

 In this blog post we'll setup and configure a standalone F5 Application Delivery Controller (commonly referred as load balancer). We'll be using a BigIP VM appliance for this lab. Before we begin, we should have following information handy.

  • BIG-IP base registration key
  • Internal/External self IP address, netmask, and default gateway
  • IP address on the management route

1.     After deploying the ova file, when we startup the appliance, we'll be prompted to configure management connectivity. After which we can access the GUI of BigIP using https://<management_IP_address> and default username and password as admin/admin. After login, management IP configuration and admin/root credentials can be updated

F5 BigIP Management IP address configuration



2.    Next step is to activate Base registration /add-on license keys 





3.    Next step is to enable the modules out of licensed ones, that we want to use.





4.    Its time to configure network settings now. We'll be setting up this BigIP in a single armed mode, where a single interface will be used with VLANs trunked though it. Create a VLAN and assign an interface to it which will be forwarding the traffic for this VLAN with tag (or without tag)




5.    Create a Self IP and associate it with the VLAN we just created.




6.    Create a default route, so that BigIP can reach to other networks.


Adding Default route in F5 BigIP


So this completes our Initial configuration of BigIP. In out next post, we'll be creating adding a web server behind the load balancer by creating, VIP, pools, nodes, health monitors, SSL Certification Creation, etc. Go to post F5 BigIP - Setting up Virtual Server with SSL Offload.

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