Lab1 - F5 CLI Demo

1. Overview
2. Prerequisites
3. Environment
4. Setup
5. Testing
6. Cleanup

Overview

In this demo, we will deploy applications to the F5 BIG-IP using the new F5 CLI. This lab demonstrates how to leverage the F5 Automation Toolchain without tools like Ansible.

Prerequisites

1. Access to the F5 Unified Demo Framework (UDF)
2. Chrome browser
3. Finished Lab0 or the Lab0 QuickStart UDF DevOps Base documentation

Environment

In this lab, we will deploy an HTTP application on the F5 BIG-IP. This lab will leverage the following components and tools:

• F5 BIG-IP
• F5 Automation Toolchain
• F5 CLI
• InSpec

Setup

1. Ensure you have the latest version of the code from GitHub

    cd ~/projects/UDF-DevOps-Base
    git remote add upstream https://github.com/f5devcentral/UDF-DevOps-Base.git
    git fetch upstream
    git merge upstream/main
    cd labs/lab1
   

2. Set the BIG-IP password as an environment variable:

   NOTE: Obtain the BIG-IP password on the BIG-IP1 and BIG-IP2 documentation pages inside the UDF deployment

    export bigip_pwd=replaceme
   

3. login to the BIG-IP (using the F5-CLI container)

   Note: If the F5-CLI Docker container is not running, start it with the ‘docker start f5-cli’ command

   Let’s examine the various components of this command:

   Command	Description
   docker exec -it f5-cli	tells Docker to execute the following command in the f5-cli container
   f5 login	tell the F5 CLI to perform a login action
   --authentication-provider bigip	F5 CLI supports multiple F5 products, so this states we are targeting a BIG-IP instance
   --host 10.1.1.6	the BIG-IP instance, this can be an IP or hostname
   --user admin --password	the authentication information the F5 CLI will send to the BIG-IP

   execute the following command in your terminal:

    docker exec -it f5-cli f5 login --authentication-provider bigip --host 10.1.1.6 --user admin --password $bigip_pwd
   

   You should see a message stating “Logged in successfully”

4. Verify the Application Service 3 Extension is installed

   This command also leverages the Docker exec feature, but we are now telling the F5 CLI to target a BIG-IP, obtain the version of AS3 installed and that AS3 is ready:

    docker exec -it f5-cli f5 bigip extension as3 verify
   

   We are looking for version 3.19.1 or higher in the response.

5. Examine the AS3 declaration

   Open the http.as3.json AS3 declaration and determine the following things:

   • What type of application are we deploying?
   • What port will the BIG-IP Virtual Server use?
   • What port will the pool members listen on?

6. Issue AS3 Declaration

   The final step is to send the http.as3.json AS3 declaration to the BIG-IP. Again, this command leverages the Docker exec feature, but we are now telling the F5 CLI to create an AS3 application on the BIG-IP and to use the declaration located at /f5-cli/projects/UDF-DevOps-Base/labs/lab1/http.as3.json. For more information, please reference the F5-CLI documentation.

    docker exec -it f5-cli f5 bigip extension as3 create --declaration /f5-cli/projects/UDF-DevOps-Base/labs/lab1/http.as3.json
   

   You should receive a result code of 200.

Testing

An important, but often overlooked, part of automation is the creation of test cases to ensure the automation achieved the desired outcome. In this lab, we will leverage the Chef InSpec tool. InSpec is based on Ruby and provides a framework to test infrastructure deployed in a public or private cloud. InSpec tests are also natively supported in Azure compliance automation.

Test that the deployment was successful

In this test, InSpec will check that the application at http://10.1.20.10 is accessible and contains the phrase “Hello World”.

cd ~/projects/UDF-DevOps-Base/labs/lab1
inspec exec test/app

Visual validation

While InSpec has proven that the application is working some of you are still itching to check it in the browser… so we have included a containerized version of Firefox to view applications inside our test environment.

1. In the UDF Components list, Click the Access drop-down on the Client System
2. Click FIREFOX
3. In the Firefox browser, enter http://10.1.20.10 in the address bar

You should now see the NGINX demo application.

Cleanup

To cleanup the lab, we need to remove the AS3 declaration deployed to the BIG-IP.

This command leverages the Docker exec feature and tells the F5 CLI to target a BIG-IP then delete all AS3 declarations:

docker exec -it f5-cli f5 bigip extension as3 delete --auto-approve