F5 BIG-IP VE

Description#

This lab demonstrates how to deploy an F5 BIG-IP VE node using containerlab and connect a dataplane interface (1.1) to a simple Linux peer.

peer1:eth1 <----> bigip1:1.1

BIG-IP management networking uses vrnetlab management passthrough: the BIG-IP management IP is the same as the containerlab management IP for the node.

Prerequisites#

• A Linux host with hardware virtualization support (KVM) available as /dev/kvm.
• A locally built vrnetlab BIG-IP VE container image (the topology references vrnetlab/f5_bigip-ve:17.5.1.3-0.0.19).
• See the upstream build steps in the vrnetlab f5_bigip image documentation and the containerlab kind documentation: F5 BIG-IP VE.
• A BIG-IP VE license (demo/evaluation licenses are available via an F5 registered account, subject to eligibility/terms).

Deployment#

Deploy the lab using the topology file in this directory:

sudo containerlab deploy -t f5bigipve01.clab.yml

BIG-IP VE takes a while to boot (often 10+ minutes). Watch the logs until you see Startup complete:

docker logs -f clab-f5bigipve01-bigip1

Inspect the running lab to get the BIG-IP management address:

containerlab inspect -t f5bigipve01.clab.yml

Example output (addresses and IDs will differ):

+---+-----------------------+--------------+------------------------------+------------+---------+----------------+----------------------+
| # |         Name          | Container ID |            Image             |    Kind    |  State  |  IPv4 Address  |     IPv6 Address     |
+---+-----------------------+--------------+------------------------------+------------+---------+----------------+----------------------+
| 1 | clab-f5bigipve01-bigip1 | ...        | vrnetlab/f5_bigip-ve:...     | f5_bigip_ve | running | 172.20.20.4/24 | 3fff:172:20:20::4/64 |
| 2 | clab-f5bigipve01-peer1  | ...        | wbitt/network-multitool:...  | linux      | running | 172.20.20.5/24 | 3fff:172:20:20::5/64 |
+---+-----------------------+--------------+------------------------------+------------+---------+----------------+----------------------+

Access BIG-IP (SSH/HTTPS)#

Use the IPv4 management address reported by containerlab inspect (e.g., 172.20.20.4 without the /24).

• SSH (CLI):

ssh root@<bigip-mgmt-ip>

• HTTPS (Web UI/API):

https://<bigip-mgmt-ip>

This lab also publishes BIG-IP HTTPS 443 to host port 8443 (ports: - 8443:443), so you can also access the GUI as https://localhost:8443.

Default credentials and override options are documented in F5 BIG-IP VE.

Verify dataplane interface wiring#

This topology connects BIG-IP 1.1 (mapped to eth1 in the container) to peer1:eth1.

On the host, confirm the dataplane link exists on the BIG-IP container:

docker exec -it clab-f5bigipve01-bigip1 ip -br link show dev eth1

Confirm the Linux peer also has eth1 present:

docker exec -it clab-f5bigipve01-peer1 ip -br link show dev eth1

Optionally, after logging into BIG-IP over SSH, confirm the VM sees 1.1:

tmsh show net interface 1.1

Cleanup#

Destroy the lab:

sudo containerlab destroy -t f5bigipve01.clab.yml