Exercise 1.3 - Adding a load balancing pool¶
Objective¶
Demonstrate use of the BIG-IP pool module to configure a load balancing pool in BIG-IP device. A load balancing pool is a logical set of devices, such as web servers, that you group together to receive and process traffic.
Guide¶
Step 1:¶
Examine the
bigip-pool.yml
in the VSCode editor. Expand in the Explorer in VSCode (f5-bd-ansible-labs –> 101-F5-Basics –> 1.3-add-pool):
name: CREATE POOL
is a user defined description that will display in the terminal output.The
bigip_pool:
is the module for adding/modifying/deleting pools on the BIG-IP.The
provider:
parameter is a group of connection details for the BIG-IP.
The
server: "{{ ansible_host }}"
parameter tells the module to connect to the F5 BIG-IP IP address, which is stored as a variableansible_host
in inventoryThe
user: "{{ ansible_user }}"
parameter tells the module the username to login to the F5 BIG-IP device withThe
password: "{{ ansible_password }}"
parameter tells the module the password to login to the F5 BIG-IP device withThe
server_port: "{{ server_port }}
parameter tells the module the port to connect to the F5 BIG-IP device withThe
validate_certs: false
parameter tells the module to not validate SSL certificates. This is just used for demonstration purposes since this is a lab.The
name: "http_pool"
parameter tells the module to create a pool named http_poolThe
lb_method: "round-robin"
parameter tells the module the load balancing method will be round-robin. A full list of methods can be found on the documentation page for bigip_pool.The
monitors: "/Common/http"
parameter tells the module the that the http_pool will only look at http traffic.The
monitor_type: "and_list"
ensures that all monitors are checked.
Step 2:¶
Change directories to the exercise 1.3 folder to examine and execute the code in the Terminal
cd ~/f5-bd-ansible-labs/101-F5-Basics/1.3-add-pool/
Step 3:¶
Run the playbook - Go back to the Terminal on VS Code server on the control host and execute the following:
ansible-navigator run bigip-pool.yml --mode stdoutPlaybook Output
The output will look as follows.
[rhel-user@ede... 1.3-add-pool]$ ansible-navigator run bigip-pool.yml --mode stdout PLAY [BIG-IP SETUP] ************************************************************ TASK [CREATE POOL] ************************************************************* changed: [f5] PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************* f5 : ok=1 changed=1 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0
Solution¶
The finished Ansible Playbook is provided here. Click here: bigip-pool.yml.
Verifying the Solution¶
To see the configured Pool, login to the F5 load balancer with your web browser.
BIG-IP - (In UDF Console –> Components –> BIG-IP –> Access –> TMUI) - This will popup a webpage to access the F5 Login Page
Login to the BIG-IP instance
username: admin
password: found in the inventory hosts file
The load balancer pool can be found by navigating the menu on the left. Click on Local Traffic-> then click on Pools.
You have finished this exercise.