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danielo303_1961's avatar
danielo303_1961
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Dec 19, 2012

Standby comes up with old configs

 

We have a pair of LTM 1500's configured as active-standby pair, running BIG-IP Version 9.4.3 1.4. Config sync completes successfully, and I can see that the /config/bigip.conf file is identical after sync.

 

 

However, the running configuration on the standby is old and bears little relation to the active peer. There was a data center move, and IP renumbering that happened before I started here.

 

 

Last night I attempted to fail over to the standby, after performing a sync and confirming that the bigip.conf file matched on the two systems. My expectation was that when the standby became active, it would load the correct config from config sync. However, the standby system took over using its old config, which is completely broken in the new environment. I was forced to fail back to the primary system.

 

 

It seems that the standby is holding on to its old config, despite receiving config sync from the primary. Is there some way I can ensure that the standby gets loaded with the correct configuration?

 

 

Should I do a "b config install my_active.ucs" on the secondary unit to ensure the configs are synced?

 

 

Any suggestions appreciated!

 

 

application delivery
availability
LTM
TMOS

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  • El_Jefe's avatar
    El_Jefe
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    Dec 19, 2012
    I would try a couple of things. Look in the logs and see if ConfigSync is failing. I'd expect that it is. If you can get them to sync, that's always best. Barring that, I'd get the "good" config over to the standby box using an SCF or migrating bigip.conf, or something. Then once you have all that working, I would upgrade to version 10.2.4, and then I would talk about upgrading the 1500's as they went End of Sale in 2009, and End of Software Development 8/1/2012. :-)
  • HHeredia_36237's avatar
    HHeredia_36237
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    Dec 19, 2012

    you may want to try the same procedure but this time via the CLI and after having the the config sync command issued, try a "b load".

     

    Command line operations sometimes give us more information than the GUI. On the other hand, remember b load is able to note something wrong in the config file and avoids loading it to the RAM. It's possible that the config is being synced from active unit but it's not loaded to RAM due to some errors or bad sintax.

     

     

     

    good luck!

     

     

    HH

     

  • danielo303_1961's avatar
    danielo303_1961
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    Dec 20, 2012

    HH, El Jefe,

     

    Thanks for your suggestions. Following your suggestion, I did a sync from the command line, and then "b verify load" on the standby. The errors led me to a bigip_local.conf file with some entries that were preventing the common configuration from loading. After I wiped those out, I was able to cleanly sync and install the config from the active host.

     

    I'll schedule a failover test during a maintenance window later, but for the first time in a while my units are actually sync'd, which is awesome.

     

    Thanks!

     

    -Daniel