Specifications

Chapter 6
6-16
Disabling automatic fail back
In some cases, you may not want connections to automatically failback. The
fact that a machine has resumed operation may not be reason enough to
disrupt connections that are running on the BIG-IP serving as both units.
Note that because of addressing issues, it is not possible to slowly drain
away connections from the machine that was running as both units, giving
new requests to the recently rebooted machine.
To disable automatic fail back, set the BIG/db key
Common.Bigip.Failover.ManFailBack to 1. When you set this key to 1, a
BIG-IP running as both units does not surrender a unit number to a rebooted
peer until it receives the bigpipe failover failback command. By default,
this key is not set.
Taking an active-active BIG-IP out of service
You can use the bigpipe failover standby command to place an active unit
in standby mode. In active-active mode, type the following command to
place one of the active units in standby mode:
b failover standby
This command causes the BIG-IP to surrender its unit number to its peer.
That is, its peer now becomes both units 1 and 2, the BIG-IP appears out of
service from a fail-over perspective, it has no unit numbers. You can make
any changes, such as configuration changes, before causing the machine to
resume normal operation.
Placing an active-active BIG-IP back in service if automatic failback is disabled
If the Common.Bigip.Failover.ManFailBack key is set to 0 (off), normal
operation is restored when you issue a bigpipe failover failback command
on the BIG-IP with no unit number.
In active-active mode, type the following command to place a standby unit
back in service:
b failover failback
This command causes the BIG-IP to resume its unit number. That is, the
peer now relinquishes the unit number of the BIG-IP that has resumed
service.
However, if the Common.Bigip.Failover.ManFailBack key is set to 1
(on), normal operations are restored when you issue a bigpipe failover
failback command on the BIG-IP running with both unit numbers.
Introducing additional active-active BIG/db configuration parameters
There are several new BIG/db parameters for active-active mode.
◆ Common.Bigip.Failover.ActiveMode
Set this BIG/db parameter to 1 to enable active-active mode. The default
setting is off, and redundant systems run in active/standby mode.