LTM Ver 10 to 11 upgrade

Here is the Link and my own step by step documentation on how I did it. F5 Upgrade from 10.x to 11.0. this is from 10.0 to 11.0. Once you are on 11.0, you can further upgrade to higher 11.x and also hotfixes.

https://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ltm/manuals/product/bigip_upgrading_activestandby_systems_11_0_0.html?sr=21826633

Note: go to page 20 of above document (below is what I recall and saved.. Please try to follow F5 link on how to upgrade. below is for 10.x to 11.0. I am not on 11.2.1 with hotfix.

1. download software and load into both units

    

2. sync from active to standby so both configs are same.. click System, High Availability, Device Connectivity, ConfigSync and Synchronize to Peer

    

3. reactivate license on both units (maps to step 3), System, License, re-activate

    

4. Save current config on both units (via gui or tmsh command). Note.. I ignored steps 4-7 on link which is for HA group (I am running HA pair & didn't use this).

    

5. Do all on standby first and reboot... on standby, disconnect network cables (I didn't do this since it was done on Sunday during 5 hours outage).

    

6. Install new 11.x image on standby to HD1.2 assuming 10.x image is on HD1.1.. (step 6 from link)... to do so follow below steps 7-12

    

7. click System > Software Management > Image List > Import
8. click Browse, Import, find BIGIP-11.2.x.x.x.iso
9. wait until you see "The upload of image has completed" and press OK button.
10. in the Available Images area, click the link to the version 11.x software image
11. Select a location to install the image (since 10.2 is in HD1.1, we select HD1.2), and click Install

12. Click System > Software Management > Boot Locations (maps to step 6)

     

13. Activate image and reboot standby, to do this follow steps 14-15

     

14. select checkbox for boot loacation, click Activate

15. wait until the standby reboots to new 11.x image

     

16. Repeat steps 6 and 7 for current primary. Once all done and rebooted, Promote old primary back to primary.

     

Thanks Matin. Appreciate your help.

I believe you only need to upgrade to 11.0 first if your current version is lower than 10.1.0, and you are not currently using the volumes formatting scheme. Search the release notes of the target version you want to upgrade to.

Srinivasan: Can you tell us what is the exact current version of 10.x you have, also, do you have partitions or not.. also, what version of 11.x would like to go to? Thank you.

Keep in mind, that the Sync interface must be a TMM Port. This was changed with Version 11.x.

Hello Matin : I am in version 10.2 and would like to go to 11.2. How about hot fixes? Do we need to seperately download them along with the ISO file?

You download hotfix and same as main image go to system/software-management/ but instead of clicking image-list, you click on Hotfix-list and to the right of availble images, click on import.. I upload hotfix first since its faster.. then the main image. Here is another awesome link from F5 for 10.x to 11.x upgrade. Go to part "Preparing BIG-IP active-standby systems for an upgrade". First part is for both units.. the 2nd part for standby and 3rd for active unit. Last note, when I go to system/software-management/image list or /hotfix list, the boot location for my 10.2.3 image is HD1.1 & for 11.2.0 is HD1.2 and 11.2.1 is HD1.3. This way, if I have any issues with 11.2.1, I can boot back from HD1.2 which is 11.2.0 image. You maybe going from 10.2.x to 11.2.1 and may have HD1.1 and HD1.2.. just make sure, you place the name image in a different boot location partition.

http://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ltm/manuals/product/bigip-upgrade-active-standby-11-2-0/1.htmlunique_6436610

Thanks Matin. That helps.

Srinivsan: One last thing. If you upgrade main image to BIGIP-11.2.1.797.0.iso and the hotfix which is Hotfix-BIGIP-11.2.1-1225.0-HF10.iso, the SYNC will totally change the way it looks & show disconnected. To Sync, You must be in Common Partion (other partitions will show disconnected sync). Then click on your F5 name with (self) next to it, choose "sync device to group" from Sync drop-down, check mark overwrite configuration and click on Sync. Good Luck.

BTW...How to find out if my existing system is running volumes formatting scheme? I see following in the pre-installation checklist.

"Ensure that your system is running version 10.1.0 or later and is using the volumes formatting scheme"