Manual Chapter : Templates for Configuration Management

Applies To:

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BIG-IQ Device

  • 4.5.0
Manual Chapter

About configuration templates

BIG-IQ® Device can manage multiple devices simultaneously. These devices can be located in several data centers that may be located in many different locations. To help you easily manage required configuration changes (such as changes to DNS, default gateways, route domains, NTP, or SNMP) for a large number of devices, you can use configuration templates. You define changes once in the configuration template, then push the template out to specified devices. This can save a significant amount of time because you are not required to log in to each device individually.

Creating a configuration template

You can create a configuration template to deploy a specific configuration to one or more managed devices. Centrally managing these deployments from BIG-IQ Device eliminates the need to log in to each device individually to specify or update a configuration.
  1. Log in to BIG-IQ Device with your administrator user name and password.
  2. At the top of the screen, click Provisioning.
  3. Hover over the Config Templates panel, click the + icon when it appears, and then click Create Config Template.
  4. In the Name and Description fields, type a name and a short description to identify this template.
  5. From the Add New Object list, select the object you want to add to this template, and then click the Add button. The screen refreshes to display the property fields for the object.
  6. In each property field, define the new object property's values. You can add additional values for some properties by clicking the + sign next to the property field. For specific information about the configuration options for BIG-IP, refer to the BIG-IP system documentation.
  7. For each property, select one of the following:
    Option Description
    Fixed The value you define for this option is fixed. A user cannot change this value when deploying the template.
    Optional The value you define for this option is the default. A user can leave this default or specify their own value when deploying the template.
    Required You do not define a value for this option. The user must specify a value when they deploy the template.
    You provide specific self IP addresses when you deploy this template.
  8. After you add all of the objects you want to this template, click the Save button located on the panel header.
This template is now available for deployment to managed BIG-IP® devices.

Applying a configuration template to a managed device

You must create a configuration template before you can apply it to a discovered device.
Applying a configuration template saves time when you want to make a similar change to several managed BIG-IP® devices.
  1. Log in to BIG-IQ Device with your administrator user name and password.
  2. At the top of the screen, click Provisioning.
  3. On the Devices panel, expand the device group that contains the device to which you want to apply a configuration template by clicking the arrow next to it.
  4. Click the gear icon next to the device you want to apply this template, and then click Apply Config Template.
  5. From the Name field, select the name for this configuration template deployment.
  6. Click the Deploy button.
BIG-IQ® Device applies this configuration to the specified BIG-IP devices.