F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition: Image Patch & Upload

Overview

This template prepares a BIG-IP Virtual Edition (VE) image for use in OpenStack and imports the patched image to Glance. The template does the following:

  1. launches an Ubuntu server;
  2. downloads the BIG-IP VE image from the specified URL to the onboarding server;
  3. patches the image for use in OpenStack;
  4. uploads the patched BIG-IP VE image to Glance.

Prerequisites

  • An external network with access to the internet.
  • BIG-IP Virtual Edition image file in qcow.zip format.
  • BIG-IP license provisioned appropriately for your environment. [1]
  • Ubuntu image imported to Glance. [2]
  • SSH key configured in OpenStack.
  • One (1) VLAN configured in Neutron; must have access to the external network. The onboarding server uses this network connection to import the BIG-IP VE image.

Caveats

  • The Heat engine cannot retrieve image files via ‘https’; for this template, image file uploads are not supported. The BIG-IP image must be in a location accessible to the Heat engine via ‘http’.
  • BIG-IP VE images come in different sizes. The Nova compute flavor you should use for your image depends on the image’s disk size requirements. See the F5 OpenStack BIG-IP flavor matrix for more information.

Tip

If you see an unspecified error after launching this template in OpenStack Horizon, see OpenStack bug id 1476770.

Configuration Parameters

Parameter Type Description Default
Onboard Ubuntu Image [3] string An Ubuntu image to use for the onboarding server N/A
F5 Onboard Server Flavor string Nova compute flavor for the onboarding server m1.medium
Use Config Drive boolean Use config drive to provide meta and user data to the orchestration instance False
F5 Onboard Server Management Network string Network you want to attach the onboarding server to; must have access to the internet N/A
Keystone Auth URL string Keystone Authentication URL N/A
Image Import Tenant string OpenStack project you want to import the image to admin
Image Import User string User account you want to import the image to admin
Image Prep URL string F5Networks GitHub repo where the image prep tools reside DO NOT CHANGE THIS SETTING
F5 VE Image URL string URL for the BIG-IP VE image (must use http) N/A
F5 VE Image Name string

Name of the BIG-IP VE image in the qcow.zip file

example: BIGIP-11.6.0.6.0.442.qcow2

N/A
SSH Key string SSH Key to use for authentication to the onboarding server N/A
Apt-cache URL [4] string URL for your local apt-cache proxy None

Deployment

See the F5 HOT deployment instructions.

Download

Click the link below to download the template.

Download

Footnotes

[1]See Simplified Licensing.
[2]See the OpenStack Virtual Machine Image Guide for more information.
[3]Import the image to Glance before you launch this template.
[4]Used by the F5 OpenStack development team for testing.