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ringoseagull_77's avatar
ringoseagull_77
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Jul 20, 2010

Active/Standby upgrade - interface question

In SOl1125 there is a requirement to isolate the two F5s during upgrade to maintain service. The document states that you should remove all of the cables from the device you are about to upgrade (except the management interface) or disable the network interfaces on the upstream device.

 

 

Disabling the network interfaces of the active F5 would cause an immediate cessation of service. Or am I missing something?

 

 

As my redundant pair (1600s, upgrading 9.4.7. to 10.1) are in separate data centres I would like to perform the whole upgrade remotely from my office. Is there any reason why I shouldn't just disable the network interfaces on the machine I'm working on, assuming that I'm doing all the work connecting through the management interface to the command line and GUI?

 

 

 

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  • Chris_Miller's avatar
    Chris_Miller
    Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus
    Jul 20, 2010
    Disabling interfaces is recommended when using network failover because it keeps a unit from answering traffic while it thinks it's active. Since it takes a bit of time for the device to see its peer, it will assume it's active and immediately start responding to traffic. By keeping the management interface enabled, you're able to access the device to upgrade it and to validate it's 100% up before sending traffic to it.

     

     

    In your case, you'd want to disable all interfaces except the mgmt interface on your standby device, upgrade it, wait until it was up, and then bring the other interfaces up. Unfortunately, because you're going from 9.4.7 to 10.1 where the network failover changes significantly, the two boxes will go active-active. So, you'll have to bring the other box down, bring the newly-upgraded one's interfaces up, and then clear ARP unless you're using MAC Masquerade.
  • hooleylist's avatar
    hooleylist
    Icon for Cirrostratus rankCirrostratus
    Jul 20, 2010
    I'd also go an extra step and disable all the upstream switch(es) ports which connect to TMM switch ports for the unit you're upgrading. I've seen ports which were disabled in the LTM config come up during (or immediately after?) an upgrade. Disabling the upstream switch ports eliminates any potential issues.

     

     

    Aaron
  • ringoseagull_77's avatar
    ringoseagull_77
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    Jul 20, 2010
    Aaron, from my understanding of the interface configuration I believe the physical TMM ports on the F5s are used both for F5 failover and as the ports to the trunked VLANS, so that wouldn't be possible if I wanted to retain service during upgrade.

     

     

    I could disable the ports on the switch the standby unit being upgraded physically connects to though.