Specifications

Configuring a Redundant System
BIG-IP® Reference Guide 6-7
Using gateway fail-safe
Fail-safe features on the BIG-IP provide network failure detection based on
network traffic. Gateway fail-safe monitors traffic between the active
BIG-IP and the gateway router, protecting the system from a loss of the
internet connection by triggering a fail-over when the gateway is
unreachable for a specified duration.
You can configure gateway fail-safe in the Configuration utility or in
BIG/db. If you configure gateway fail-safe in BIG/db, you can toggle it on
and off with bigpipe commands.
Adding a gateway fail-safe check
When you can set up a gateway fail-safe check using the Configuration
utility, you need to provide the following information:
• Name or IP address of the router (only one gateway can be configured
for fail-safe)
• Time interval (seconds) between pings sent to the router
• Time-out period (seconds) to wait for replies before proceeding with
fail-over
Note
We recommend a gateway failsafe ping interval of 2 seconds with a timeout
of 10 seconds. If this interval is too small, you can use any 1 to 5 ratio that
works for you.
To configure gateway fail-safe using the Configuration
utility
1. In the navigation pane, click System.
The Network map screen opens.
2. Click the Redundant Properties tab.
The Redundant Properties screen opens.
3. In the Gateway Fail-safe section of the screen, make the following
entries:
• Check the Enabled box.
•In the Router box, type the IP address of the router you want to
ping.
•In the Ping (seconds) box, type the number of seconds you want
the BIG-IP to wait before it pings the router.
•In the Timeout (seconds) box, type the timeout value, in
seconds. If the router does not respond to the ping within the
number of seconds specified, the gateway is marked down.
4. Click the Apply button.