F5 BIG IP Administration - F5 EXAM 201 Preparation

Explore how an F5 BIG-IP application delivery controller enables high availability and scalability by using virtual servers, nodes, pools, and full proxy architecture to load balance web applications.

Set up the Big-IP appliance by configuring the management IP, licensing (automatic or manual activation and add-ons), and resource provisioning, then access via CLI or GUI to complete setup utility.

Configure big-ip appliances in the lab using cli and gui, change default passwords, set management ip, license the device (automatic and manual), and complete the basic setup wizard.

Configure two VLANs and two self IPs on a BIG-IP to expose external and server facing IPs for three web servers in a load balanced setup.

Build a basic load balancing setup with three nodes, a pool, and a virtual server, and manage node health with default or node-specific ICMP monitors.

Configure a three-node web load balancing setup on BIG-IP with a pool and virtual server, using http health checks, round-robin distribution, and source address translation for seamless client access.

Learn how to configure health monitors, reselect retries, and availability rules for pools and virtual servers on BIG-IP, using ICMP and HTTP monitors, plus address lists and source restrictions.

Learn health monitors in F5 BIG-IP, configure and create custom monitors for ICMP and HTTP, adjust interval, timeout, up-interval, and manual resume for application-driven receive strings.

Compare node monitor and pool monitor behavior in F5 BIG-IP administration, using dns pool and web pool with icmp and http monitors.

Configure a dns pool and dns monitor to test dns server health by sending a dns query for a specific record and expecting a response on port 53.

Learn how F5 Big-IP monitors validate pool members with http, icmp gateway, and dns tests, tune interval and timeout, and use application-centric checks to keep web pools healthy.

Explore static load balancing with round robin, CMP, and multiple TMs to evenly distribute traffic across pool members, while monitors verify server on or off.

Apply static load balancing with ratio based methods by configuring pool member ratios and node ratios to deterministically distribute traffic across servers and pools, including multi-pool scenarios.

Explore dynamic load balancing via the least connections method, evaluating pool members and nodes by current active connections across pools, with lab demos for member-based and node-based configurations.

Learn how dynamic load balancing uses ratio least connections to allocate traffic across pool members and nodes, maintaining configured ratios and round robin between equal members.

Discover dynamic load balancing with ratio least connections at the node level, and learn how node ratios across multiple pools guide BIG-IP distribution and 25% targeting.

Explore weighted least connections for pool members and nodes, where per-server connection limits form an implicit ratio. Learn load distribution behavior, and test with delays and rate limits.

Master weighted least connections at the node level by applying per-node connection limits and watching about 30% of total connections route to a targeted node across pools.

Understand dynamic ratio load balancing, driven by health monitor data (cpu, memory, disk) from the agent, adjusting pool member ratios; compare observed, predictive, and fastest modes with static round robin.

Explore priority groups in Big-IP, defining active and standby pool members, enabling priority group activation, and using thresholds to promote standby members during failures.

Attach a source ip persistence profile to a virtual server to keep a client's requests on the same pool member for a period, using persistence records and subnet prefix length.

Learn how to implement http cookie persistence with Big-IP to ensure a user stays on the same pool member across sessions, addressing source IP limitations in e-commerce contexts.

Explore enabling cookie encryption for Big-IP persistence cookies to prevent information leakage of pool IPs and ports, while recognizing replay risks and the need for DDoS protections.

Learn cookie hash persistence in F5 BIG-IP, where the server sets a cookie and the BIG-IP creates a persistence record to route to the mapped pool member.

Remove the server header from http responses generated by the BIG-IP by updating the http profile and the default http profile.

Explore configuring tcp and http profiles in a full proxy BIG-IP setup, applying client-side and server-side settings, and testing idle timeout and ttl with http ping on virtual servers.

Configure an ssl profile on the big ip to encrypt client-server traffic by moving the virtual server to port 443, using a self-signed or trusted certificate.

Navigate the linux shell and TMOS demos to manage routing tables, inspect LTM pools and virtual servers, and analyze connections, persistence, and tcp profile timeouts.

Master tcpdump on the big ip to capture icmp traffic on the inside interface, filter by host or direction, and export pcap files for analysis with Wireshark.

Explore how Big-IP NAT in a proxy architecture handles client to server traffic. See how Source NAT uses the self IP to ensure server responses return to the client.

Configure routing on the big-ip with static routes for subnet 172.16.1.0/24 and a default route to the internet, using the routing and management routing tables.

Configure BIG-IP high availability with two active standby devices, a floating IP, and automatic configuration synchronization to ensure transparent failover for users and applications.

Configure high availability between two BIG-IP appliances by setting internal and external networks, VLANs, and a floating IP, then enable config sync, keepalive, connection mirroring, device-group synchronization, and persistence mirroring.

Learn to manage big-ip users and roles, enable terminal access and ssh, and distinguish who can use linux vs advanced shell, including administrator privileges and partition scope.

Understand administrative partitions in big-ip, organizing nodes, pools, and virtual servers into partitions, and assign partition managers to control access to common and partitioned objects.