F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Training

Learn the lab topology with one router and one F5 device, three web servers on the internal 172.16.0.0 network, and external 192.168.1.0, using VMware Workstation or ESXi for setup.

Configure VMware networks for management, internal, and high-availability, disable DHCP, and set subnets. Download the BIG-IP VE 16.1.1 OVA via the free trial and prepare the required HA licenses.

Install and configure BIG-IP LTM on VMware Workstation by importing the OVA file, setting up management, external, internal, and high availability interfaces, changing admin passwords, and accessing the web dashboard.

Activate and license an F5 Big-IP LTM, then configure management and network settings including internal and external interfaces, HA IP, NTP, DNS, and initial high availability provisioning.

Install the BIG-IP LTM on ESXi by importing the OVA, naming the device, and configuring management, external, internal, and high availability networks before powering on.

Import three web servers—red, green, and blue—via OVF files, assign them to the internal vlan vm net 2, and power them on to complete the setup.

Add web servers as nodes in the BIG-IP LTM, create an HTTP pool, enable a health monitor with periodic checks, and distribute traffic via round robin to active nodes.

Create a virtual server on the f5 ltm to distribute incoming http traffic to the pool via the load balancing method. Access via 192.168.10.200 or yblab.com, with host file testing.

Learn how destination NAT on the BIG-IP LTM forwards client requests to the web server and translates IPs and ports, with responses returning via the LTM.

Explore how source nat translates internal ip addresses to the virtual server, solving gateway issues and enabling proper return traffic with auto map or snat pool in ltm.

Create a SNAT pool to scale beyond 65,000 concurrent connections by distributing requests across multiple IP addresses in the pool.

Configure client-side IPv6 on the F5 LTM by creating IPv6 self IP and external floating IP, set the IPv6 default route, and create an IPv6 virtual server with AutoMap.

Create an outbound forwarding virtual server to allow internal servers to access the internet via F5 LTM, using forwarding IP, all ports and protocols.

Learn about F5 LTM load balancing methods, including round robin default. Explore ratio and dynamic ratio, fastest methods, least connections, weighted least connections, observed and predictive approaches, and least sessions.

Explore static load balancing in F5 BIG-IP LTM by applying ratio values to pool members and nodes, then compare ratio member and ratio node to distribute traffic.

Explore dynamic load balancing methods in F5 BIG-IP LTM, adjust dynamic ratio member and weighted least connection settings, and apply the least connection method for http applications.

Explore priority based load balancing in F5 big-ip ltm by grouping servers, assigning ratio values, and directing traffic to the highest priority groups.

Explain persistent connections and persistence in load balancing, including HTTP 1.1 keep-alive and TCP multiplexing to reuse connections. Show how persistence keeps sessions on a server using cookies or identifiers.

Create and configure cookie and source address persistence profiles in F5 BIG-IP LTM, set custom timeouts, apply them to the virtual server, and verify persistence behavior via the CLI.

Create and apply a One Connect profile to reduce the three-way handshake between the LTM and web servers from three to one, boosting efficiency in virtual server acceleration.

Create and apply a self-signed ssl certificate and ssl profile to enable https traffic between users and the ltm, then configure a https virtual server on port 443.

Discover how iRules interact with traffic on the LTM, route to pools or URIs, parse headers, and create, test, and apply redirects from http to https.

Direct mobile http requests with F5 LTM by creating pools, an iRule, and a virtual server; route iPad to green pool-2, Android to blue pool-3, others to red pool-1.

Configure high availability for F5 BIG-IP LTM by setting self and floating IPs, failover methods, and synchronization between two virtual devices to ensure seamless traffic during outages.

Learn to configure high availability synchronization on BIG-IP LTM, synchronize devices to keep configurations in sync, manage active and standby states, and enable automatic failover through traffic group settings.

Enable high availability stateful settings by turning on connection mirroring and mirror persistence on each virtual server, ensuring active sessions automatically migrate from active to standby without disruption.

implement a one armed mode virtual server on f5 big-ip ltm to route internal http and https traffic, apply http and client ssl profiles, and use an iRule redirect.

Explore iApps, a user-customizable framework for deploying applications using templates, application services, and analytics. Create iApps templates and app services in LTM to configure virtual servers, pools, and SSL settings.

Enable packet filtering on F5 LTM and configure a discard rule to block TCP traffic from a source IP to a destination server, with exemptions for MAC addresses and IPs.

Learn how to create and encrypt a backup from the archive, choose whether to include private keys, download and store it, then upload and restore on a replacement F5 LTM.

Learn basic linux commands on the F5 LTM, change the management interface IP, create and delete LTM pools, and reset to factory settings with load system config default.

Explore how to perform a health check with iHealth, generate and upload a QKview file to ihealth.f5.com, and review diagnostics, configurations, and critical warnings.

Update a F5 BIG-IP device by downloading and importing the 16.1.2 ISO, backing up pre-update, installing to boot location 1.2, activating the new image, and verifying the upgrade.