F5 BigIP Local Traffic Manager

This example lives in the pulumi/examples repository. Check out just this directory to use it:

$ git clone --filter=blob:none --sparse https://github.com/pulumi/examples pulumi-examples
$ git -C pulumi-examples sparse-checkout set f5bigip-ts-ltm-pool
$ cd pulumi-examples/f5bigip-ts-ltm-pool

This example demonstrates use of the Pulumi F5 BigIP provider to provide load balancing via an F5 BigIP appliance to backend HTTP instances. The example provisions:

• an LTM Monitor with a Send String value of GET /
• an LTM Pool using the LTM Monitor
• N number of LTM Pool Attachments based on provided backend addresses
• an LTM Virtual Server

All of these happen behind a single pulumi up command, and are expressed in just a handful of TypeScript.

This directory contains three Pulumi projects that are deployed in sequence:

• f5bigip-ec2-instance/ — (optional) provisions an F5 BigIP appliance on AWS.
• nginx-ec2-instance/ — (optional) provisions backend NGINX instances on AWS.
• f5bigip-pool/ — provisions the F5 BigIP LTM pool resources.

Prerequisites#

1. Install Pulumi
2. Configure AWS credentials (needed if you deploy the optional AWS resources below)
3. Install Node.js

If you already have an F5 BigIP appliance available, you only need administrative credentials to it and at least one backend HTTP instance to load balance to.

If you do not already have an F5 BigIP appliance available, you can use the example in f5bigip-ec2-instance to deploy an F5 BigIP instance on AWS using an F5 BigIP AMI from the AWS Marketplace. Note: you must first subscribe to the AWS Marketplace product here.

If you do not already have a backend HTTP instance available, you can use the example in nginx-ec2-instance to deploy multiple NGINX instances on AWS and use them as members of the LTM Pool as Pool Attachments.

Deploying the example#

(Optional) Provisioning an F5 BigIP appliance on AWS#

1. Change directory to f5bigip-ec2-instance, then install dependencies:

   cd f5bigip-ec2-instance
   npm install

2. Create a new stack, which is an isolated deployment target for this example:

   pulumi stack init f5bigip-ec2-instance-dev

3. Set the required configuration variables for this program:

   pulumi config set aws:region us-west-2
   pulumi config set f5BigIpAdminPassword --secret [your-new-bigip-password-here]

4. Deploy everything with the pulumi up command. This provisions the necessary AWS resources, primarily a VPC security group and EC2 instance, in a single gesture:

   pulumi up

   Updating (f5bigip-ec2-instance-dev):
   
   Type                      Name                                           Status
   +   pulumi:pulumi:Stack       f5bigip-ec2-instance-f5bigip-ec2-instance-dev  created
   +   ├─ aws:ec2:SecurityGroup  bigIp                                          created
   +   └─ aws:ec2:Instance       bigIp                                          created
   
   Outputs:
       f5Address  : "https://34.210.83.227:8443"
       f5PrivateIp: "172.31.42.112"
   
   Resources:
       + 3 created
   
   Duration: 40s

   After this completes, numerous outputs will show up. f5Address and f5PrivateIp are values you will use in the f5bigip-pool example later on.

(Optional) Provisioning backend NGINX instances#

1. Change directory to nginx-ec2-instance, then install dependencies:

   cd nginx-ec2-instance
   npm install

2. Create a new stack, which is an isolated deployment target for this example:

   pulumi stack init nginx-ec2-instance-dev

3. Set the required configuration variables for this program:

   pulumi config set aws:region us-west-2

4. Deploy everything with the pulumi up command. This provisions a VPC security group allowing access to NGINX from anywhere and three EC2 instances running NGINX:

   pulumi up

   Updating (nginx-ec2-instance-dev):
   
       Type                      Name                                        Status
   +   pulumi:pulumi:Stack       nginx-ec2-instance/-nginx-ec2-instance-dev  created
   +   ├─ aws:ec2:SecurityGroup  nginx                                       created
   +   ├─ aws:ec2:Instance       nginx-2                                     created
   +   ├─ aws:ec2:Instance       nginx-1                                     created
   +   └─ aws:ec2:Instance       nginx-0                                     created
   
   Outputs:
       instancePublicIps: [
           [0]: "52.35.179.187"
           [1]: "34.213.179.46"
           [2]: "54.184.63.40"
       ]
   
   Resources:
       + 5 created
   
   Duration: 44s

   After this completes, a single output with multiple values will display. instancePublicIps are the IP addresses you will use to provide load balancing to in the f5bigip-pool example.

Provisioning F5 BigIP application pool resources#

1. Change directory to f5bigip-pool, then install dependencies:

   cd f5bigip-pool
   npm install

2. Create a new stack, which is an isolated deployment target for this example:

   pulumi stack init f5bigip-pool-dev

3. Set the required configuration variables for this program:

   pulumi config set f5bigip:address <f5Address>
   pulumi config set f5bigip:username admin
   pulumi config set f5bigip:password <f5Password>
   pulumi config set f5bigip-pool:backendInstances <address1:port,address2:port,...>
   pulumi config set f5bigip-pool:f5BigIpPrivateIp <f5PrivateIp>

4. Deploy everything with the pulumi up command. This provisions F5 BigIP LTM resources — application monitor, application pool, pool attachments, and virtual server:

   pulumi up

   Updating (f5bigip-pool-dev):
   
       Type                           Name                           Status
   +   pulumi:pulumi:Stack            f5bigip-pool-f5bigip-pool-dev  created
   +   ├─ f5bigip:ltm:Monitor         backend                        created
   +   ├─ f5bigip:ltm:Pool            backend                        created
   +   ├─ f5bigip:ltm:VirtualServer   backend                        created
   +   ├─ f5bigip:ltm:PoolAttachment  backend-0                      created
   +   ├─ f5bigip:ltm:PoolAttachment  backend-2                      created
   +   └─ f5bigip:ltm:PoolAttachment  backend-1                      created
   
   Resources:
       + 7 created
   
   Duration: 3s

Cleaning up#

Once you are done, you can destroy all of the resources, and the stack. Repeat this in each directory for each of the examples above that you ran pulumi up within:

pulumi destroy
pulumi stack rm