Manual Chapter : Device Discovery

Applies To:

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BIG-IQ Cloud and Orchestration

  • 1.0.0
Manual Chapter

Device Discovery

About device discovery and management

You use BIG-IQ® Device to centrally manage resources located on BIG-IP® devices.

The first step to managing devices is making BIG-IQ Device aware of them through the discovery process. To discover a device, you provide BIG-IQ Device the device IP address, user name, and password. Alternatively, you can upload a CSV file to discover a large number of devices. When you discover a device you place it into a group. These groups help you organize devices with similar features, like those in a particular department or running a certain software version.

After you discover devices, you can view and export inventory details about those devices for easy asset management, and you can modify device configurations as required without having to log in to each device individually.

Discovering a BIG-IP device in your network by its IP address

After you license and perform the initial configuration for the BIG-IQ® system, you can discover BIG-IP™ devices running version 11.5.3 HF3 and later or 11.6 HF6 and later. For proper communication, you must configure the BIG-IQ system with a route to each F5 device you want to manage. If you do not specify the required network communication route between the devices, then device discovery fails.

Important: The BIG-IQ system will attempt discovery of BIG-IP devices running versions other than those noted (above) as fully supported. Discovering unsupported devices is not recommended.

There are two ways to discover F5 devices in your network.

  • You can discover a device you previously imported to the BIG-IQ system.
  • You can discover a device in your local network.
Important: When you discover a device, BIG-IQ software will install necessary components on the device, which can cause the traffic management interface (TMM) on the BIG-IP device to restart. Therefore, before discovering a device, verify that no critical network traffic is targeted to the BIG-IP device.
  1. Hover over the Devices header, click the + icon when it appears, and then select Discover Device.
    The Devices panel expands to show the Discover Device screen.
  2. To discover a device:
    • If you previously imported the device to the BIG-IQ system:
      1. For Source, select the BIG-IQ Inventory option.
      2. Click the device located in the Available field, and click the Move button to move it to the Include field.
      3. Click Save to start the discovery task
    • If the device is in your local network:
      1. For the Source, select IP Address.
      2. For the IP Address, specify the device's internal self-IP address.
      3. For the Device Group, select the group to which you want to add the device.
      4. In the User Name and Password fields, type the administrator user name and password for the managed device.
        Important: For successful device discovery, you must use the admin account; not the root account. If root access is needed, the system prompts you for it.
  3. Click Save to start the discovery task.
The BIG-IQ system populates the properties of the device that you added in the Devices panel.