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nov1ce_120072's avatar
nov1ce_120072
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Oct 12, 2015

Upgrade from 10.2.3 to 12.0.0

Hello,

 

I'm upgrading a pair of BIG-IP LTM VE 10.2.3(112) to the latest 12.0.0(606) in the lab. They're in active/standby mode with only one module provisioned: LTM. Network failover is enabled. There is one VS configured (serving FTP) with Connection Mirroring checked. The Default Persistence Profile for the FTP VS is set to source_addr (with Mirror Persistence enabled).

 

The failover of 10.2.3(112)'s works as expected. I can force standby to active and vice versa without losing active FTP connections. I also see mirrored connections (incl. persistent) on both units, so all is good.

 

I'm following https://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ltm/manuals/product/bigip-upgrade-active-standby-11-6-0.html for the upgrade.

 

I force standby unit (Device B) to offline, update the software and reboot. The status of Device B changes to Standalone (ONLINE STANDBY) after the reboot. After that, I force active unit (Device A) to offline, all current FTP sessions are dropped and reconnected to Device B. I update the software on Device A, reboot and sync both units.

 

So I end up with Device B being Active and Device A being Standby.

 

Here comes my question. I don't see any mirrored connections on Standby unit at this stage, so if I force Device A to become Active FTP connections are dropped again. Once I perform this initial switchover, I can see mirrored connections on both units and further changes from Standby to Active don't result in FTP interruptions. Is this expected? I mean is it normal that I don't see mirrored connections on Standby unit immediately after the reboot?

 

Thank you.

 

application delivery
LTM
management
software upgrade

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  • nov1ce_120072's avatar
    nov1ce_120072
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Oct 21, 2015

    Thanks! The first outage is clear to me, I was wondering about the outage when both boxes run 12.0.

     

    You see, when you start the upgrade Device A is in active mode and Device B is in standby. When you finish with the upgrade, Device B is active and Device A is in standby. When you initially force Device A to become active, this is where the outage happens. Once it's done, things get back to normal and both units keep connections table.