Configuring profiles in F5 BIG-IP LTM Load Balancer

Configuring profiles

Profile types

The different types of profiles are

1. Service Profiles
2. Persistence Profiles
3. Protocol Profiles
4. SSL Profiles
5. Authentication Profiles
6. Other Profiles

1. Service Profiles:- Service profiles are layer7 oriented. Two examples are HTTP and FTP.

2. Persistence Profiles: - Persistence profiles are usually client-oriented. Two examples are cookie and source address.

3. Protocol profiles: - Protocol profiles are layer4 oriented. Several examples are TCP, UDP and Fast L4.

4. SSL Profiles: -The types of SSL profiles are either client SSL or Server SSL, and they are named referencing where the traffic is encrypted.

5. Authentication Profiles: - Authentication profiles allow BIG-IP to authenticate clients with the assistance of authentication servers prior to load balancing traffic to Pool Member.

6. Other Profiles: - One example the remaining profile type (Other) is the stream profile allows BIG-IP to modify content from the server before it reaches the client.

Profile configuration concepts

Profile configuration is based on the template concept.

The default profiles (or templates ) are stored in the location shown below, can be changed, but can’t be deleted. However F5 recommends not modifying the default profiles.    

Default Profiles – Templates

1. Stored in / config/profile_base.conf
2. cannot be deleted.

Custom profiles are stored in the location below. When they are created, they are built from a parent profile which creates a child /parent relation ship. We will wait until the configuration screen to discuss child /parent relation ship.

Custom profiles

1. Stored in / config/bigip.conf
2. created from default probes
3. Dynamic child and parent relation ship.

Creating Profiles

There are several ways to create profiles. First select local traffic, then profiles.

Use the Flyout menu to get to the group and specific type and then click create.

If you don’t use the Flyout menus be careful to select the appropriate group and type of profile before clicking the create button or you might create the wrong type.

Configuring Profiles

After creating the profile, from the new profile screen, enter the profile name and if necessary select the appropriate type. In this example we are creating a persistence profile and we need to select the persistence type.

The parent profile field defaults to the template for that type, but you can specify

another of the same type if you have already create a custom profile.

As previous mentioned, this parent profile server as template for your custom profile. You can accept the default values for each setting or you can customize one or more of them by selecting the custom check box.

Then you specify the value for each setting you are changing. It is important to understand how these custom values are treated. Setting that are not customized inherit the same value as the parent. If the parent profile settings are later changed, the child will dynamically receive that change also.

Let’s say you are creating a persistence profile and you are customizing only the time out value later on, someone changes the values for time out and mark in the parent profile.

The time out value in your child profile would not change (because you customize it)but the mask value would change (because the child profile inherited its value from parent). Note that if the custom check box is selected, that setting is considered to be a static value –even if it matches the default value.

Last, the profile needs to be associated with the virtual server before the changes will take effect.