Licensing BIG-IP VE¶
In order to use BIG-IP VE, you must have a license from F5.
To choose the license you need, see this webpage. You can get a trial license if you need one.
To learn how to license a BIG-IP, consult the K7752 article.
Reusing licenses¶
In BIG-IP VE version 12.1.3.3+, and 13.1.0.2+ ONLY, you can revoke the license from a virtual machine and re-use it on another virtual machine.
From the Configuration utility, to revoke the license, go to and click Revoke.
From tmsh, to revoke the license, run the command:
tmsh revoke sys license
This functionality works for these BIG-IP VE versions ONLY.
Per-App licenses¶
When you want to use BIG-IP VE with one back-end application, choose a Per-App license.
Per-App licenses are currently available:
- As BYOL (Bring Your Own License)
- With throughput speeds of 25 or 200 Mbps
- In BIG-IP VE 13.1.0.2 and later
This license is available for Local Traffic Manager (LTM) only, or you can use it to run LTM and Application Security Manager (ASM) as a WAF (Web Application Firewall).
Per-App licenses are also used as part of BIG-IP Cloud Edition, to license BIG-IP VE instances when they are auto-scaled from within BIG-IQ.
Per-App licensing virtual server options¶
With a Per-App license, you can create one virtual IP address and three virtual servers.
The three virtual servers in this case would have the same destination IP address, but would use different ports.
For example, you can have the following virtual servers:
| Name | Description | Destination Address/Service Port |
|---|---|---|
| VS1 | Website traffic | 10.10.10.10:443 |
| VS2 | Redirect for website traffic | 10.10.10.10:80 |
| VS3 | Website instrumentation/health checking | 10.10.10.10:8080 |
If you’d prefer, the virtual server can be a wildcard. For example, the Destination Address would be 0.0.0.0 instead of 10.10.10.10 in the previous example. You can specify the Service Port, or use *.
| Name | Description | Destination Address/Service Port |
|---|---|---|
| VS1 | Catch-all, log with iRule | 0.0.0.0:* |
| VS2 | Website traffic | 0.0.0.0:443 |
| VS3 | Website instrumentation/health checking | 0.0.0.0:8080 |
Licenses for BIG-IP add-on modules¶
Some add-on modules for BIG-IP will require an add-on license. For complete details, consult the Activating add-on modules procedure in the K7752 article.