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Parth_Shah_7020's avatar
Parth_Shah_7020
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Feb 18, 2005

gcc on bigip

Hi

 

I am doing some development on big-ip box in c++ and need to compile my stuff on big-ip box using gcc, but I am facing array of problems

 

 

1. Any comipled program does not work - I tried running a compiled hello world program, and its says the file not found, it dosnt recognize the file I placed on the box - file has rwx permissions and I am running it as ./a.out

 

 

So I tried installing gcc on the box and found that its doesn't have enough space, so I tried mounting remote disk thru mount_nfs , that also does not work, says 'RPC time out' , both the boxes can ping each other.

 

 

 

So the questions I have are , what do I need to do to run my c++ program on big-ip box.

 

 

Your help us greatly appriciated.

 

 

Thanks,

 

Parth
dev
devops
iControl
v4

9 Replies

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  • Joe_Pruitt's avatar
    Joe_Pruitt
    Feb 18, 2005
    DevCentral is a support forum to aid with iControl and iRules development. As far as I know, F5 does not support, nor encourage software development on a BIG-IP itself. In fact, you might be violating your support contract if you install other software on the BIG-IP (compilers, debuggers, etc).

     

     

    I would recommend that you contact F5 Product Technical Support at

     

     

    http://www.f5.com/support/

     

     

    to get these questions resolved.

     

     

    Cheers,

     

     

    -Joe
  • Brian_Gupta_115's avatar
    Brian_Gupta_115
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Feb 21, 2005
    Parth,

     

     

    Just out of morbid curiousity, I need to ask. Why are you trying to install gcc on the BigIP?

     

     

    Thanks,

     

    Brian
  • Parth_Shah_7020's avatar
    Parth_Shah_7020
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Feb 21, 2005
    We want to calculate the load (network, memory etc..) on the boxes which are behind these bigip boxes, for capacity planning.

     

    So the paramaters we are really looking for are

     

     

    bytes/sec in

     

    bytes/sec out

     

    free memory

     

    idle time

     

    etc...

     

     

    right now we are running 'bigpipe virtual show' command in a perl script and parsing its output. But since we need the more accruate calculation of bytes/sec we initially want to run this command in c, later we may write our own control.

     

     

    Is there anything in iControl which will give me this accruate statistics ?
  • Loc_Pham_101863's avatar
    Loc_Pham_101863
    Historic F5 Account
    Feb 21, 2005
    This is exactly the kind of things iControl would be well suited for. Each interface has methods that support retrieving statistics, for example, ITCMLocalLB::Node::get_node_server_statistics or ITCMLocalLB::Node::get_node_address_statistics...

     

     

    For memory usage and other stats, please check out ITCMLocalLB::Globals and ITCMSystem interfaces.

     

     

    Loc
  • Joe_Pruitt's avatar
    Joe_Pruitt
    Feb 21, 2005
    As Loc pointed out, we provide the raw statistical data via iControl for all of our main objects. It is up to the client application to calculate rates based on those metrics. A simple (v2-v1)/t calculation can be made to determine the rate change. We also provide methods that return timestamps with the data if you are concerned with latency issues during the iControl call itself.

     

     

    -Joe
  • Parth_Shah_7020's avatar
    Parth_Shah_7020
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Feb 22, 2005
    ok, let me give you the bigger picture

     

     

    we have lots of bigip boxes, which we want to moniter from a central server. The central server maynot get connection to the bigip box when it needs to show the statistics.

     

    So we have written a script which runs on bigip box locally and keeps the status history. So even when controller does not get access to this box, the sattus hostory is preserved, controller can query it later once it gets the connection.

     

     

    This is why we are avoiding calling iControl remotely and trying to develop an application on the bipip box which will give us the accurate results.

     

  • Brian_Gupta_115's avatar
    Brian_Gupta_115
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Feb 22, 2005
    You should still go with iControl... If you lose connectivity to the BigIP, what you may lose is some data granularity for the time period in question. You can still calculate rates for the time when you lose connectivity.

     

     

    I suggest that you download the Perl iControl package, and do some testing. I think you will be surprised. (There is a very good collection of iControl info on this site to get you started).

     

     

    Cheers,

     

    Brian

     

     

    P.S. - Running home grown apps on the BigIP invalidates your support and purchase contract. (Personally I'd rather have the peace of mind knowing that I am running a supported configuration).
  • Loc_Pham_101863's avatar
    Loc_Pham_101863
    Historic F5 Account
    Feb 22, 2005
    Also, for those who are interested, in the 9.0.6, iControl will provide support for returning CSV formatted statistics for any stats being monitored by the Performance Graph in the GUI. This allows client applications to retrieve statistics with timestamp information suited for statistic trending and analysis.

     

     

    Regards,

     

    Loc
  • Philippe_CLOUP's avatar
    Philippe_CLOUP
    Icon for Employee rankEmployee
    Dec 06, 2007
    About your Nagios Module, is it actually existing, or always in your wish list ?

     

     

    Thanks.

     

     

    :D