Lab Setup

In this section we will setup your working environment for the remainder of the guide.

Setup Postman

Throughout the guide we will use Postman to make API calls to different services. To make this easier and to reduce the amount of copy and pasting needed we have prebuilt a Postman Collection (set of API calls) and Postman Environment (set of variables) that will be leveraged.

  1. Install the Postman web client if you do not already have it: Installation

  2. The first time opening Postman you may need to disable SSL certificate verification depending if devices in your environment have self-signed certs. Within Postman open settings/preferences and uncheck the property for verification.

    ssl_check

    Note

    We recommend to always use secure communication and Trusted CA signed certificates.

  3. Click the Run in Postman button below to import the Collection and Environment into your client.

  4. When the Environment imports successfully you will need to enable it by selecting the drop-down in the top right and choosing Beacon_Guide.

    select_env

  5. The final step in preparing Postman for the guide is to configure the connection details for F5 Beacon and your BIG-IP. Click the Eye icon in the top right next to the Environment name.

    Note

    As the guide expands its scope you may not wish to ingest data from your BIG-IP. If that is the case you can skip the environment parameters that are BIGIP specific, but you will still need the ones for F5 Beacon.

    env_settings

    A dialogue will appear with a list of variables that need to be set. Click the pencil icon next to each field to set it as follows in the CURRENT VALUE column:

    • USERNAME: <Your Beacon Login>
    • PASSWORD: <Your Beacon Password>
    • BIGIP_HOST: <Hostname / IP of your BIG-IP>
    • BIGIP_PORT: <Port of your BIG-IP (443/8443)>
    • BIGIP_USER: <BIG-IP Admin User>
    • BIGIP_PASS: <BIG-IP Password>

    env_vars

At this point your Postman client is ready to begin configuring F5 Beacon!

Setup your BIG-IP

Important

This section is only needed if you plan to ingest data from BIG-IP and you do not currently have Application Services 3 (AS3) or Telemetry Streaming (TS) installed on them.

BIG-IP has an extensible API which means that you can install packages onto it which expand its capabilities. AS3 and TS are declarative extensions which this lab will utilize to declaratively configure BIG-IP with an Application Service and then send related data to Beacon. In the following steps we will walk through using the BIG-IP GUI, but this is possible through API as well.

  1. Download the latest released .rpm file from the Assets section of each repo (your version may be different):

    rpmasset

  2. In the BIG-IP GUI navigate to iApps >> Package Management LX and then select Import.

    Note

    If you are using a BIG-IP version prior to 14.0, before you can use the Configuration utility, you must enable the framework using the BIG-IP command line. From the CLI, type the following command: touch /var/config/rest/iapps/enable. You only need to run this command once (per BIG-IP system).

    guiimport

  3. Select either the TS or AS3 RPMs that you downloaded and then click Upload. You will see the extension appear after installation.

    ts_installed

  4. Repeat this step for the remaining TS or AS3 RPM if your system requires it.

Your BIG-IP is now ready for the Beacon Guide!