Using Big-IP as a router

Make sure you remove the 'Reset on Timeout' option (Default is enabled on the default profiles) when setting loose open/close... Otherwise when the connection table entry expires you'll get the connections reset for you :)

 

 

And yes. You'll need a 0.0.0.0/0 network VS before traffic will pass**

 

 

 

H

 

 

** or a SNAT. But I don't like them for routing (Or much at any time unless really really necessary).

 

whats the today preferred settings if I (for example) just want to use the F5 as a router (or rather the case is to merge a Cisco-router and F5 into a single device)?just in case you have not yet seen this sol.

 

 

sol7595: Overview of IP forwarding virtual servers (Emulating stateless IP routing with BIG-IP LTM forwarding virtual servers)

 

http://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/solutions/public/7000/500/sol7595.html

Thanks for the replies... seems like there are a bunch of outdated technotes out there.

 

 

What I have done so far (and initial tests shows that the packets (so far) is sent in right direction(s) :P) is to create a vserver (type:forwarding ip) with net/mask 0.0.0.0/0 acting on any protocol and create a custom fastL4 profile that has reset on timeout disabled along with loose open (and close) enabled.

 

 

Then did the same as above but acting on udp as protocol and a custom fastL4 profile for that also similar to above with the addition of state timeout set to 5 seconds instead of default 300.

 

 

So now I have two vservers:

 

 

VS_ROUTE

 

VS_ROUTE_UDP

 

 

Ohh and finally setup the static (or whatever) routes one need in the network part...

 

 

And thats it? :-)

 

 

Looking at the different types one can setup your vserver to I found "stateless" in v11.1 which isnt mentioned in the help-pages.

 

 

How does "stateless" differ from "forwarding ip" for what I want to do (at a first glanze one could think that stateless is a more optimized version of forwarding ip since I want the F5 to route the packets and not touch them at all (except for packets directed to other vservers))?

these are only information about stateless virtual i found.

 

 

UDP performance

 

This release provides UDP performance improvements through use of the Stateless virtual server type.

 

 

Release Note: BIG-IP LTM and TMOS version 10.2.3

 

http://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ltm/releasenotes/product/relnotes-LTM-10-2-3.html

 

 

Stateless

 

A Stateless virtual server improves the performance of UDP traffic in specific scenarios. (v. 10.2.2 and later)

 

 

sol12272: Overview of virtual server types for BIG-IP version 10.x

 

http://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/solutions/public/12000/200/sol12272.html