f5-bigip cookbook

Control F5 load balancer config

Requirements

An F5 to manage

Usage

You assign this to a node to manage an F5 devices

Attributes

• node['f5-bigip']['credentials']['databag'] - Databag with credentials
• node['f5-bigip']['credentials']['item'] - Databag Item with credentials
• node['f5-bigip']['credentials']['key'] - Key in Databag Item with credentials
• node['f5-bigip']['credentials']['host_is_key'] - Set to true to grab specific credentials for each f5 host based on f5 hostname being used as a key in the specified databag::item
• node['f5-bigip']['provisioner']['databag'] - Databag that contains an item for each f5 you want to manage with f5::provisioner. Check test/integration/data_bags/f5-provisioner-* for sample data bag structures.

Definitions

f5_vip

This definition is a wrapper for the f5_ltm_node, f5_ltm_pool and f5_ltm_virtual_server LWPRs. It allows you to specify all the required info into the f5_vip definition which will then be translated into the necessary LWRP declarations.

Parameters

Example

The simplest VIP declartion that takes as many defaults as possible:
ruby
f5_vip 'testing.test.com' do
f5 'test-f5.test.com'
nodes ['10.10.10.10', '10.10.10.11']
pool 'test-pool'
destination_address '192.168.1.10'
end


A fully user defined VIP:
ruby
f5_vip 'testing.test.com' do
f5 'test-f5.test.com'
nodes ['10.10.10.10', '10.10.10.11']
member_port 4443
pool 'test-pool'
lb_method 'LB_METHOD_RATIO_MEMBER'
monitors ['/Common/https', '/Common/tcp']
destination_address '192.168.1.10'
destination_port 8443
profiles [
{ 'profile_context' => 'PROFILE_CONTEXT_TYPE_ALL', 'profile_name' => '/Common/tcp' },
{ 'profile_context' => 'PROFILE_CONTEXT_TYPE_ALL', 'profile_name' => '/Common/http' }
]
vlan_state 'STATE_ENABLED'
vlans ['/Common/vlan123', '/Common/vlan234']
snat_type 'SRC_TRANS_SNATPOOL'
snat_pool '/Common/snat_pool'
default_persistence_profile '/Common/test_persistence_profile'
fallback_persistence_profile '/Common/test2_persistence_profile'
rules ['/Common/_sys_auth_ldap', '/Common/_sys_auth_radius']
end


LWRPs

These LWRPs allow you to idempotently manage various F5 resources. This is accomplished by using a 'proxy' node that manages the F5 through the use of the F5's APIs.

f5_ltm_node

f5_ltm_node - Used to manage nodes.

Attributes

Example

f5_ltm_node '10.10.10.10' do
  f5 'f5-test.test.com'
  enabled true
end

f5_ltm_pool

f5_ltm_pool - Used to manage pools

Attributes

Example

f5_ltm_pool 'test' do
  f5 'f5-test.test.com'
  lb_method 'LB_METHOD_ROUND_ROBIN'
  monitors ['http']
  members [
    {
      'name'      => '10.10.10.10',
      'port'      => 80,
      'enabled'   => true
    },
    {
      'name'      => '10.10.10.11',
      'port'      => 80,
      'enabled'   => true
    }
  ]
end

f5_ltm_monitor

f5_ltm_monitor - Used to manage monitors.

Attributes

Example

f5_ltm_monitor 'test' do
  f5 'f5-test.test.com'
  parent '/Common/new_https'
  interval 20
  timeout 40
end

f5_ltm_virtual_server

f5_ltm_virtual_server - Used to manage virtual servers

Attributes

Example

f5_ltm_virtual_server 'vs_new' do
  f5 'f5-test.test.com'
  destination_address '10.11.10.10'
  destination_port 80
  default_pool 'new'
  enabled true
end

Recipes

• f5-bigip::default - install the required packages and gems required to interact with the F5 API.
• f5-bigip::provisioner - Make the node that is assigned this recipe an f5 provisioner system. This recipe will dynamically define LWRPs to create the nodes, pools and virtual servers as defined by the databag value node['f5']['provisioner']['databag'].
  • Each item in the databag represents an F5
  • Basically lets you define your F5 with JSON
  • Example @ [test/integration/data_bags/f5-provisioner-1/test.json](test/integration/data_bags/f5-provisioner-1/test.json)

Testing

Installing gems with bundler is a little different then normal in this case. The f5-icontrol gem supported by F5 is not on rubygems.org. There IS an f5-icontrol gem on rubygems.org that is not what we want that someone else created.

So for convenience the f5-icontrol gem from F5 is included with this cookbook. For spec testing the Gemfile references f5-icontrol. Using the :path option to reference the local gem does not work per https://github.com/bundler/bundler/issues/2298. So I used the workaround described in the referenced issue.

bundle install --no-cache

Then run the tests!

bundle exec rake


Notes on Integration Testing

Why Vagrant

This cookbook uses Vagrant combined with Virtualbox and chef-minitest for testing. It would be great to use test-kitchen instead. Unfortunately there are several reason Vagrant is a better solution for this cookbook:

• test-kitchen does not support multiple VMs natively
• test-kitchen does not support multiple converges
• test-kitchen creates/destroys the environment every run making testing take longer
  • Testing for this cookbook can be done with Vagrant's 'provision' which leaves the VMs up and running. test-kitchen was taking about 5min per test run whereas Vagrant takes 45 seconds per test run.

Using Vagrant with lab F5 hardware

To use Vagrant you'll first need to make sure you have the following vagrant plugins:

• vagrant-omnibus (1.4.1 tested)
• vagrant-berkshelf (3.0.1 tested)

You'll need to modify [test/integration/data_bags/f5/creds.json](test/integration/data_bags/f5/creds.json) with the correct username/password.

Then you'll need to update hostname in [test/integration/data_bags/f5-provisioner-1/test.json](test/integration/data_bags/f5-provisioner-1/test.json) and [test/integration/data_bags/f5-provisioner-2/test.json](test/integration/data_bags/f5-provisioner-2/test.json) with the IP address of the F5 to connect to.

Now you should be able to create an admin node AND run a test:

vagrant up admin


After the VM have been created subsequent testing can be done by doing:

vagrant provision admin


Notes for maintainers with access to F5 VE Vagrant box

If you have access to an F5 VE Vagrant box

Create test environment AND run a test:

vagrant up


After the VMs have been created subsequent testing can be done by doing:

vagrant provision


License and Authors

Author:: Jacob McCann (jacob.mccann2@target.com)

Copyright:: 2013, Target Corporation

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.