F5-BIGIP Virtual Server for Virtual Private Cloud using Custom Image

Use this template to create F5-BIGIP virtual server using custom image from your IBM Cloud account in IBM Cloud VPC Gen2 by using Terraform or IBM Cloud Schematics.  Schematics uses Terraform as the infrastructure-as-code engine.  With this template, you can create and manage infrastructure as a single unit as follows. For more information about how to use this template, see the IBM Cloud Schematics documentation.

The F5-BIGIP virtual server instance only supports BYOL at this time.

Support

#F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition - You can open a support case in the F5 WebSupport Portal at https://websupport.f5.com/, review additional F5 technical support documentation at https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K25327565 or contact F5 support directly (24x7x365):

• North America: 1-888-882-7535
• Outside North America: +800 11 ASK 4 F5 (800 1127 5435)

F5 support centers are strategically located for partners and customers in APAC, Japan, EMEA and North America. Regionally located support centers enable F5 to provide support in a number of languages through native-speaking engineers who are available when you are. An annual support contract may be purchased separately from F5 Technical Support Services at https://support.f5.com.

#IBM Cloud IaaS Support You're provided free technical support through the IBM Cloud™ community and Stack Overflow, which you can access from the Support Center. The level of support that you select determines the severity that you can assign to support cases and your level of access to the tools available in the Support Center. Choose a Basic, Advanced, or Premium support plan to customize your IBM Cloud™ support experience for your business needs.

Learn more; https://www.ibm.com/cloud/support

Prerequisites

• Must have access to Gen 2 VPC.
• The given VPC must have at least one subnet IP address unassigned - the F5-BIGIP VSI will be assigned a IP Address from the user provided subnet as an input.

Costs

When you apply template, the infrastructure resources that you create incur charges as follows. To clean up the resources, you can delete your Schematics workspace or your instance. Removing the workspace or the instance cannot be undone. Make sure that you back up any data that you must keep before you start the deletion process.

• VPC: VPC charges are incurred for the infrastructure resources within the VPC, as well as network traffic for internet data transfer. For more information, see Pricing for VPC.
• VPC Custom Image: The template will copy over a custom F5 image - this can be a one time operation.  F5 virtual instances can be created from the custom image.  VPC charges per custom image.
• F5-BIGIP Instances: The price for your virtual server instances depends on the flavor of the instances, how many you provision, and how long the instances are run. For more information, see Pricing for Virtual Servers for VPC.

Dependencies

Before you can apply the template in IBM Cloud, complete the following steps.

1. Ensure that you have the following permissions in IBM Cloud Identity and Access Management:
   • Manager service access role for IBM Cloud Schematics
   • Operator platform role for VPC Infrastructure
2. Ensure the following resources exist in your VPC Gen 2 environment
   • VPC
   • SSH Key
   • VPC has a subnet
   • (Optional): A Floating IP Address to assign to the F5-BIGIP instance post deployment

Configuring your deployment values

When you select the F5-1arm-offeringtemplate from the IBM Cloud catalog, you can set up your deployment variables from the Create page. Once the template is applied, IBM Cloud Schematics provisions the resources based on the values that were specified for the deployment variables.

Required values

Fill in the following values, based on the steps that you completed before you began.

Key	Definition
region	The VPC Zone that you want your VPC virtual servers to be provisioned. To list available zones, run ibmcloud is regions
ssh_key_name	The name of your public SSH key to be used for F5-BIGIP VSI. Follow Public SSH Key Doc for creating and managing ssh key.
vnf_profile	The profile of compute CPU and memory resources to be used when provisioning the vnf instance. To list available profiles, run ibmcloud is instance-profiles.
vnf_instance_name	The name of the VNF instance to be provisioned.
subnet_id	The ID of the subnet where the VNF instance will be deployed. Click on the subnet details in the VPC Subnet Listing to determine this value

Outputs

After you apply the template your VPC resources are successfully provisioned in IBM Cloud, you can review information such as the virtual server IP addresses and VPC identifiers in the Schematics log files, in the Terraform SHOW and APPLY section.

Variable Name	Description	Sample Value
resource_name	Name of the F5-BIGIP instance	N/A
resource_status	Status of the F5-BIGIP instance	Running or Failed
VPC	The VPC ID	r134-7a9df886-xxxx-yyyy-zzzz-67c6dd202337
f5_admin_portal	Web url to interact with F5-BIGIP admin portal - https://<Floating IP>:8443	https://192.168.1.1:8443

Notes

If there is any failure during F5-BIGIP VSI creation, the created resources must be destroyed before attempting to instantiate again. To destroy resources go to Schematics -> Workspaces -> [Your Workspace] -> Actions -> Delete to delete all associated resources.

1. The BYOI image download may take a while. Timeout has been set 30 Minutes.
2. Do not modify or delete subnets and floating/public IPs used by the F5-BIGIP instance.

Post F5-BIGIP Instance Spin-up

1. From the VPC list, confirm the F5-VSI is powered ON with green button
2. Assign a Floating IP to the F5-VSI. Refer the steps below to associate floating IP
   • Go to VPC Infrastructure Gen 2 from IBM Cloud
   • Click Floating IPs from the left pane
   • Click Reserve floating IP -> Click Reserve IP
   • There will be a (new) Floating IP address with status Unassociated
   • Click Three Dot Button corresponding to the Unassociated IP address -> Click Associate
   • Select F5 instance from Instance to be associated column.
   • After clicking Associate, you can see the IP address assigned to your F5 Instance.
3. In the Security group,  here are the steps to open the port 8443
   • Go to VPC Infrastructure Gen 2 from IBM Cloud
   • Click Security groups from the left pane
   • Click the security group which is corresponding to your VPC
   • Click New Rule in "Inbound Rules" column.
   • Select Protocol as "TCP"
   • Select Port Range under Port
   • Give 8443 port number in Port min and Port max
   • Select Source type as Any
   • Click Save, and a new rule will be added to your security group
4. From the browser, open https://<Floating IP>:8443, login using user and password 
5. In First login, it will ask to reset the password.
6. Once the password got reset. You will be able to login to F5 instance admin portal.