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Steve_130921's avatar
Steve_130921
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Nov 15, 2013

F5 failover behavior, v.11.4

Hello All. I've installed a pair of F5's for LTM, v.11.4, in two different data centers using Network failover. I want Data Center A to be my 'Always Active' device unless there is a failure and it will fail over to Data Center B.

 

So I shut down it's port channel in Data Center A and it fails over to B. I then restore my port channel in DC A. It should become my Active device again but does not.

 

I forced the F5 in DC B to go Standby and it does but DC A does not go active. They stay Standby/Standby. If I force the device in DC B to go offline, then DC A will go Active.

 

Vlan failover seems to work okay and act correctly but I wanted to use the HA Group failover because it's faster.

 

Any advice?

 

availability
deployment

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  • burnham_114767's avatar
    burnham_114767
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    Nov 16, 2013

    It sounds like you need Auto-Failback? Under Network-->Traffic Groups -->group name. Should fail back to the default device after the unit is

     

    Auto-Failback: Specifies whether the traffic group fails back to the default device. When checked, causes the traffic group to float back to the default device whenever that device is as available or more available than another device in the group. This occurs even when other devices in the group are more available than the default device. When cleared, causes the traffic group to remain active on the current device until that device becomes unavailable.

     

    Failback-Timer: Specifies the number of seconds the system delays before failing back to the default device. The range is from 0 to 300 seconds. The default is 60. A value of 40 to 60 seconds allows for state mirroring information to be re-mirrored for traffic groups.

     

    • Steve_130921's avatar
      Steve_130921
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      Nov 16, 2013
      Thank you. But... I already tried that. Looking through the forums I found that setting and used it. I waited 10 minutes for it to fail back and it still would not. When using that setting is when it went standby/standby. When I take it off and just go with the HA group it fails but when I try to fail back the active goes standby for a few seconds but then goes back active again. As though Data Center A doesn't want to go active. It will go active if I force the Data Center B to go Offline. I changed Bonus values, members in the HA group, weights, etc. If I remove failover settings I can make it fail to DC B and then back every time, manually. Vlan failover seems to work correctly, failing back and forth manually. HA Group failover will fail properly but simply refuses to fail back either auto or manually.
  • Steve_130921's avatar
    Steve_130921
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    Nov 21, 2013

    Well, as it turns out. The HA Group failover function was broken as of v.11.x. It hasn't worked properly in quite a while.

     

    I have a functional workaround now but it would be nice for it to work as it should.