Manual Chapter : Failsafe

Applies To:

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BIG-IP AAM

  • 11.5.10, 11.5.9, 11.5.8, 11.5.7, 11.5.6, 11.5.5, 11.5.4, 11.5.3, 11.5.2, 11.5.1

BIG-IP APM

  • 11.5.10, 11.5.9, 11.5.8, 11.5.7, 11.5.6, 11.5.5, 11.5.4, 11.5.3, 11.5.2, 11.5.1

BIG-IP GTM

  • 11.5.10, 11.5.9, 11.5.8, 11.5.7, 11.5.6, 11.5.5, 11.5.4, 11.5.3, 11.5.2, 11.5.1

BIG-IP Link Controller

  • 11.5.10, 11.5.9, 11.5.8, 11.5.7, 11.5.6, 11.5.5, 11.5.4, 11.5.3, 11.5.2, 11.5.1

BIG-IP LTM

  • 11.5.10, 11.5.9, 11.5.8, 11.5.7, 11.5.6, 11.5.5, 11.5.4, 11.5.3, 11.5.2, 11.5.1

BIG-IP AFM

  • 11.5.10, 11.5.9, 11.5.8, 11.5.7, 11.5.6, 11.5.5, 11.5.4, 11.5.3, 11.5.2, 11.5.1

BIG-IP PEM

  • 11.5.10, 11.5.9, 11.5.8, 11.5.7, 11.5.6, 11.5.5, 11.5.4, 11.5.3, 11.5.2, 11.5.1

BIG-IP ASM

  • 11.5.10, 11.5.9, 11.5.8, 11.5.7, 11.5.6, 11.5.5, 11.5.4, 11.5.3, 11.5.2, 11.5.1
Manual Chapter

Failsafe

 

About system fail-safe

When you configure system fail-safe, the BIG-IP system monitors various hardware components, as well as the heartbeat of various system services, and can take action if the system detects a heartbeat failure.

You can configure the BIG-IP system to monitor the switch board component and then take some action if the BIG-IP system detects a failure. Using the BIG-IP Configuration utility, you can specify the action that you want the BIG-IP system to take when the component fails. Possible actions that the BIG-IP system can take are:

  • Reboot the BIG-IP system.
  • Restart all system services.
  • Go offline.
  • Go offline and cancel the TMM service.
  • Fail over and restart TMM.

You configure system fail-safe from the System > High Availability screen.

About VLAN fail-safe

For maximum reliability, the BIG-IP® system supports failure detection on all VLANs. When you configure the fail-safe option for a VLAN, the BIG-IP system monitors network traffic going through that VLAN. If the BIG-IP system detects a loss of traffic on the VLAN and the fail-safe timeout period has elapsed, the BIG-IP system attempts to generate traffic by issuing ARP requests to nodes accessible through the VLAN. The BIG-IP system also generates an ARP request for the default route, if the default router is accessible from the VLAN. Failover is averted if the BIG-IP system is able to send and receive any traffic on the VLAN, including a response to its ARP request.

For a redundant system configuration, if the BIG-IP system does not receive traffic on the VLAN before the timeout period expires, the system can initiate failover to another device group member, reboot, or restart all system services. For a single device configuration, the system can either reboot or restart all system services. The default action for both configurations is Reboot.

Warning: You should configure the fail-safe option on a VLAN only after the BIG-IP system is in a stable production environment. Otherwise, routine network changes might cause failover unnecessarily.

Each interface card installed on the BIG-IP system is typically mapped to a different VLAN. Thus, when you set the fail-safe option on a particular VLAN, you need to know the interface to which the VLAN is mapped. You can use the BIG-IP Configuration utility to view VLAN names and their associated interfaces.

There are two ways to configure VLAN fail-safe in the BIG-IP Configuration utility: from the System > High Availability > VLANs > Add VLAN screen or from the Network > VLANs > New VLAN screen .

About gateway fail-safe

One type of network failure detection is known as gateway fail-safe, which applies to redundant system configurations only. Gateway fail-safe monitors traffic between an active BIG-IP® system in a device group and a pool containing a gateway router. You configure the gateway fail-safe feature if you want the BIG-IP system to take an action, such as failover, whenever some number of gateway routers in a pool of routers becomes unreachable.

You can configure gateway fail-safe using the BIG-IP Configuration utility. Configuring gateway fail-safe means designating a pool of routers as a gateway fail-safe pool. When you designate a pool as a gateway fail-safe pool, you provide the following information:

  • The name of the pool
  • The name of a BIG-IP device in a device group (either the local device or any other device group member)
  • The minimum number of gateway pool members that must be available to avoid the designated action
  • The action that the BIG-IP system should take when the number of available gateway pool members drops below the designated threshold. The default value is Failover.

After you configure gateway fail-safe, specifying an action of Failover, the named BIG-IP device (and only that device) fails over to another device group member whenever the number of available pool members falls below the specified threshold. The BIG-IP system only monitors the gateway pool assigned to the local device and does not monitor gateway pools assigned to peer devices. When viewing the status of a peer gateway pool, you will observe an unchecked status (a blue square in the BIG-IP Configuration utility).

You configure gateway fail-safe from the System > High Availability > Fail-safe > Gateway screen.