BIG-IP® iHealth

™ User Guide

BIG-IP® iHealth

™ User Guide 2

Legal Notices

Publication Date

This manual was published on January 7, 2011

This manual was updated on November 7, 2012

Copyright

Copyright © 2012, F5 Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.

F5 Networks, Inc. (F5) believes the information it furnishes to be accurate and reliable.

However, F5 assumes no responsibility for the use of this information, nor any

infringement of patents or other rights of third parties which may result from its use. No

license is granted by implication or otherwise under any patent, copyright, or other

intellectual property right of F5 except as specifically described by applicable user

licenses. F5 reserves the right to change specifications at any time without notice.

Trademarks

3-DNS, Access Policy Manager, APM, Acopia, Acopia Networks, Advanced Client

Authentication, Advanced Routing, Application Security Manager, ASM, AskF5, ARX,

BIG-IP, Data Manager, DevCentral, Edge Client, Edge Gateway, Edge Portal, Enterprise

Manager, EM, F5, F5 Networks, the F5 logo, F5 Management Pack, Fast Application

Proxy, Fast Cache, FirePass, Global Traffic Manager, GTM, iControl, Intelligent

Browser Referencing, IBR, iHealth, Intelligent Compression, IPv6 Gateway, iQuery,

iRules, iRules OnDemand, L7 Rate Shaping, Link Controller, LC, Local Traffic

Manager, LTM, Message Security Module, MSM, NetCelera, OneConnect, Packet

Velocity, Protocol Security Module, PSM, Real Traffic Policy Builder, SSL

Acceleration, StrongBox, SYN Check, TCP Express, Traffic Management Operating

System, TMOS, TrafficShield, Transparent Data Reduction, TDR, VIPRION, WANJet,

WAN Optimization Module, WOM, WebAccelerator, WA, and ZoneRunner, are

trademarks or service marks of F5 Networks, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries, and

may not be used without F5's express written consent.

All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective

owners.

Contents

Chapter 1: What is BIG-IP iHealth? 4

How are qkview files uploaded to the BIG-IP iHealth system?

What does the BIG-IP iHealth system do with my qkview files?

Chapter 2: How do I create a qkview file? 6

Chapter 3: How do I upload my qkview file into BIG-IP iHealth? 7

Selecting your uploaded qkview files

Chapter 4: How do I delete my qkview files from the BIG-IP iHealth system? 8

Chapter 5: How do I compare qkview files? 9

Chapter 6: How do I navigate the BIG-IP iHealth interface? 10

Viewing the Quick Information bar

Viewing the Status menu

Viewing the Network menu

Viewing the Commands menu

Viewing the Graphs menu

Viewing the Diagnostics menu

Viewing the Files menu

Chapter 7: How do I use the search feature? 15

Chapter 8: How do I contact F5 Technical Support? 16

BIG-IP® iHealth

™ User Guide 4

Chapter 1: What is BIG-IP iHealth?

BIG-IP® iHealth

™ enables you to verify the proper operation of your BIG-IP and

Enterprise Manager systems and ensures your hardware and software function at peak

efficiency.

BIG-IP iHealth is a free, F5®-hosted tool that is available at https://ihealth.f5.com. This

tool is available to customers running BIG-IP 10.x and later or Enterprise Manager 2.x

and later.

The technology at the heart of BIG-IP iHealth is the qkview file, which provides a

running snapshot of your BIG-IP or Enterprise Manager system with up-to-the-minute

configuration and logging information.

The BIG-IP iHealth system translates the output from your qkview file and displays the

content in a customer-friendly format that mimics the familiar BIG-IP Configuration

utility. In addition to translating the raw data, the BIG-IP iHealth Diagnostics component

of the BIG-IP iHealth system evaluates the logs, command output, and configuration of

your BIG-IP or Enterprise Manager system against a database of known issues, common

mistakes, security alerts, and published F5 best practices. The results provide tailored

feedback about configuration issues or code defects, and provide a description of the

issue, recommendations for resolution, and a link to further information in the AskF5™

Knowledge Base.

This customized diagnostic information enables you to take the recommended action, and

in many cases, can help you resolve common configuration issues without the need to

contact F5 Technical Support. If you require assistance from F5 Technical Support, your

BIG-IP iHealth data will be available to F5 engineers for faster resolution.

How are qkview files uploaded to the BIG-IP iHealth system?

In order to use BIG-IP iHealth, a qkview file needs to be created and uploaded to the

BIG-IP system. This happens either manually or automatically.

Manually

You can download a qkview file from your BIG-IP or Enterprise Manager system, and

then upload the file to the BIG-IP iHealth system.

Note: For detailed instructions about creating a qkview file, refer to SOL12878:

Generating BIG-IP diagnostic data using the qkview utility (10.x - 11.x).

Automatically

BIG-IP iHealth was integrated with the Enterprise Manager system starting with version

3.0.0. You can configure the Enterprise Manager system to automatically create and

upload qkview files (from BIG-IP and Enterprise Manager devices) to BIG-IP iHealth,

and then view the diagnostics of all of your managed devices on a single screen. For

more information about Enterprise Manager, refer to the product overview.

What does the BIG-IP iHealth system do with my qkview file?

The BIG-IP iHealth system has two main components: BIG-IP iHealth Viewer and BIG-

IP iHealth Diagnostics.

BIG-IP iHealth Viewer

The BIG-IP iHealth Viewer essentially translates the raw information pulled from your

qkview file and presents your system data in an easy-to-read format for fast access.

The BIG-IP iHealth Viewer displays clear summaries of your unit’s health and

configuration. Graphs showing performance metrics, such as CPU usage, throughput,

memory, and RAM cache, can be customized to show specific dates and times, so you

can focus on the appropriate information. By using an interface that logically organizes

data in the same way as your BIG-IP device interface, you can isolate the information

you want. You can also search within your configuration files, log files, BIG-IP iHealth

Diagnostics output, commands, and the graphical network map.

BIG-IP iHealth Diagnostics

The BIG-IP iHealth Diagnostics component takes advantage of technical knowledge of

experienced F5 engineers to assist you in implementing the best practices for your

system. Using advanced heuristics, the tool can determine when your system is operating

outside of normal levels so you can take steps to improve performance. BIG-IP iHealth

Diagnostics will also check for security issues and recommend patches or software

updates. Content is added regularly to give you fast access to emerging threats and newly

found issues.

F5 recommends uploading a qkview file to the BIG-IP iHealth system at least once a

month, since F5 updates the BIG-IP iHealth known issues and best practices database on

a weekly basis.

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™ User Guide 6

Chapter 2: How do I create a qkview file?

To get started using BIG-IP iHealth, you must generate a qkview file on your BIG-IP or

Enterprise Manager system.

1. Log in to BIG-IP or Enterprise Manager Configuration utility.

2. Click System.

3. Click Support.

4. Ensure that QKView is selected.

5. Click Start.

After a few moments, possibly several minutes on a busy system, the Download

Snapshot File button will appear, indicating that your qkview file is ready to

download.

6. To download the qkview file to your local computer, click Download Snapshot

File.

7. The default name for a qkview file is as follows:

case_number_____support_file.tar.gz

F5 recommends changing the name to include your case number and a count

identifier.

For example:

c123456_A_support_file.tar.gz

c123456_B_support_file.tar.gz

Note: You can also manually generate a qkview file using the command line qkview

utility. For information about the qkview utility, including detailed instructions about

creating a qkview file, refer to SOL12878: Generating BIG-IP diagnostic data using the

qkview utility (10.x - 11.x).

Chapter 3: How do I upload my qkview file into BIG-IP iHealth?

1. Navigate to https://ihealth.f5.com.

2. When prompted for a login account, use your F5 WebSupport credentials.

3. To upload a new qkview file, click Upload.

4. Click Choose File.

5. Browse to the location of the qkview file on your computer.

6. Optional: If you have an open support case with F5 Technical Support, you may add

your case number to the F5 Case field. If you do not have an open support case

related to this qkview file, leave the field blank.

7. Optional: You may add your own identifier to the External Case field for tracking

purposes.

8. Click Upload.

Once the upload has completed, the BIG-IP iHealth system may take several minutes

to process the data.

Selecting your uploaded qkview files

You can log into BIG-IP iHealth at any time to see a list of available uploaded qkview

files. You can also access this list by clicking the MyQKViews link at the top of any

page. Click on the link for the desired qkview file and the BIG-IP iHealth Viewer

overview page for that qkview file will display.

Note: You can sort the columns by any field, such as the creation date of the qkview file,

F5 case number, or the upload date and time. If you have uploaded several qkview files

to the system, sorting the columns allows you to quickly find the qkview file you are

interested in.

BIG-IP® iHealth

™ User Guide 8

Chapter 4: How do I delete my qkview files from the BIG-IP iHealth system?

In accordance with the F5 data retention policy, the BIG-IP iHealth system will

automatically delete your qkview files for closed cases one month after upload. However,

you may optionally delete your uploaded qkview file at any time. To delete a qkview

file, perform the following procedure:

1. Log in to the BIG-IP iHealth system.

2. Click the My QKViews link at the top of the page.

3. Select the check boxes next to the qkview files you would like to delete.

4. Click Remove.

A pop-up window will ask you to confirm your choice.

5. Confirm.

The BIG-IP iHealth system will immediately remove the qkview file from your My

QKViews list. Deletion from the rest of the BIG-IP iHealth system will take several

minutes, as the BIG-IP iHealth system synchronizes the request between the F5 data

centers.

Note: If you delete a qkview file that is needed to troubleshoot your open support case,

F5 Technical Support may request that you upload the file again for diagnostic purposes.

Chapter 5: How do I compare qkview files?

The BIG-IP iHealth Compare feature quickly displays all of the differences between two

qkview files taken from the same system or different systems. For example, if you make

a change to your BIG-IP or Enterprise Manager system that causes your system to no

longer work correctly, you can use the Compare feature to quickly pinpoint the issue.

You would simply upload a new qkview file and use the Compare feature to compare

the new qkview file to a qkview file taken when the system was running smoothly.

Using the Compare feature

1. Log in to the BIG-IP iHealth system.

2. Follow the instructions in Chapter 3 to upload the qkview files.

3. Click the My QKViews link at the top of the page.

4. Select the check boxes next to the qkview files you want to compare.

5. Click Compare.

BIG-IP® iHealth

™ User Guide 10

Chapter 5: How do I navigate the BIG-IP iHealth interface?

The BIG-IP iHealth system is available through navigation links on the left side of the

screen. Some sub-items are hyperlinked to the associated data. When provided, the arrow

icons will expand and contract associated objects. The main overview page summarizes

the BIG-IP iHealth Diagnostics findings.

Viewing the Quick Information bar

QKView

The name of the qkview file.

Generation Date

The date and time the qkview file was created.

F5 Case

The case number associated with this qkview file.

Hostname

The hostname of the associated qkview file.

Platform

The description and identifier of the platform.

Version

The software version including hotfix name.

Comments

The first time the feature is used, there is a plus sign (+) next to Comments signifying

that there are no comments. After comments have been entered, the icon turns into a page

icon. This feature provides a space for F5 and customers to leave notes concerning the

QKView/support case for example.

Viewing the Status menu

Status > Overview

The Status > Overview page highlights key configuration data about your BIG-IP system:

Diagnostics

The Diagnostics section is a summary of BIG-IP iHealth Diagnostics findings. Click on

any of the results levels (critical, high, medium, low, or informational) to view detailed

information. If no issues were found, this field may be blank. For more information about

diagnostics results, see the Diagnostics section below.

If the BIG-IP iHealth Diagnostics component finds an issue that would be resolved by

upgrading to a newer release, the Recommendation field would display that information.

Errors

The Errors section of the overview indicates whether there are any issues with the

qkview file processing.

File

Details about the qkview file and any F5 Technical Support case numbers associated

with the upload are listed in the File section.

Quick Links

The Quick Links section provides quick access to important configuration files and logs,

such as the bigip.conf file.

System

The System section provides details about your BIG-IP system’s hostname, platform,

chassis, blade S/N, status, uptime, and load average.

Licensing and Provisioning

This section provides a status of all software modules including product names, licensing

status, provisioning status, and resource provisioning level.

Configuration Totals

A total count of all virtual servers, nodes, pools, iRules, SNATs, NATs, and monitors

associated with your configuration is provided in the Configuration Totals section.

Software

The Software section provides information about your product and the running software

version, including links to details regarding installed hotfixes.

Product

The Product section lists all of your TMOS® modules along with licensing and

provisioning information.

BIG-IP® iHealth

™ User Guide 12

Status > Hardware

The Hardware page provides a snapshot of appliance information related to the system

hardware including: general, CPU, model, system, serial numbers, disks, power supplies,

AOM, version, part numbers, and additional components.

VIPRION® hardware is fully supported in BIG-IP iHealth. Each VIPRION blade has its

own summary, with detailed disk partitioning information. The per-blade serial numbers

aid in tracking chassis content. You can also identify mixed blade chassis on this page.

Status > Software

The Software page provides a snapshot of the installed software version, registration key,

and any firmware information available.

Status > Failover

The Failover page outlines your network and hardware failover configuration

information, which includes failover state, active time, and high availability configuration

information.

Status > Licensing

The Licensing page provides a snapshot of all licensing information, including service

check date, registration key, and platform and appliance IDs. Active modules and enabled

features are also included to help you understand your system.

Viewing the Network menu

The Network drop-down menu allows you to dive into specific data about the

configuration and status of your BIG-IP system at the time the qkview snapshot was

taken. Each link opens a different view of the Network Map, which is a collapsible tree of

your configuration objects. You can open directly to your virtual addresses, virtual

servers, pools, pool members, iRules, profiles, classes, or monitors.

To see more information about any object, click on its container folder. Offline objects

are crossed out with a red line. You can hover over any object to view additional

information about the state of your running configuration.

Viewing the Commands menu

The Commands drop-down menu allows you to browse some commands, just as if they

were typed from the command line. You can view bigpipe (depreciated in later releases),

Traffic Management Shell (tmsh), UNIX, and utilities command results. For example, to

see the tmsh network information, click Commands > TMShell > Network > net

interface show. Results are opened in a new browser tab.

Clicking inside multiple command check boxes followed by clicking the View Selected

icon, opens another browser tab containing all of the selected data.

Viewing the Graphs menu

BIG-IP iHealth renders detailed graphs for all trending data available in the qkview file.

You can zoom in to focus on trouble spots, and create custom graphs. Keep in mind that

these graphs can only show data that was captured up to the time that the qkview file was

generated.

To view the active connections graph, click Graphs > Active Connections. The graph will

display traffic for the 30 days prior to the creation of the qkview file. To select other time

periods, click the 7 day, 1 day, or 3 hr tabs above the graph.

By selecting the Custom tab, you can select a specific time period to render. You can

also select individual data sets for the graph, which allows you to simplify and refine any

graph to display the specific area of interest. All of the data set names are described in the

glossary at the bottom of the page. When you have finished selecting the information of

interest, click Create Custom Graph.

To save a custom graph to your local computer, click the graph.

Viewing the Diagnostics menu

The BIG-IP iHealth Diagnostics component automatically runs all of F5’s custom

diagnostics against your qkview data after the qkview file is uploaded to the BIG-IP

iHealth system. The results of these diagnostics are easily accessible from the

Diagnostics drop-down menu on the left. You can choose to view critical, high, medium,

low, or informational diagnostics. Clicking one of these links will display a results page

for the diagnostics of that category that identifies issues with the qkview file you

uploaded. Note that this is the same information provided by clicking on the Results

links at the top of the Overview page.

Each diagnostic result includes a summary of the identified issue, a suggested action to

address the issue, links to further information about the issue (such as AskF5 Solutions)

and the heuristic name. Open the Details section of the diagnostic by clicking on the

small downward pointing arrow to reveal more information about the issue.

Click the Show All/Hide All tabs next to Details, to automatically expand/hide the

Details for all of the diagnostics.

The default diagnostics view shows only the diagnostics that matched your qkview file.

To view the diagnostics that were checked but did not match your qkview file, click the

Passed tab. To go back to the diagnostics that matched your qkview file, click the

BIG-IP® iHealth

™ User Guide 14

Identified tab. The number after each tab indicates the number of diagnostics that match

that category.

You may rate whether an individual diagnostic is helpful by clicking on the thumbs up

or thumbs down icons. F5 Technical Support uses this information to update the

diagnostics, or to influence the development of other diagnostics.

Viewing the Files menu

Under the Files menu, you can drill down into all of the configuration files, logs, and

other raw information contained in the qkview file. This information is presented in a

raw and unprocessed form. Accessing this information can help to locate issues that were

not found by the BIG-IP iHealth Diagnostics component.

To download any file to your local computer, click the name of the file you are interested

in. If a filename is grey and does not appear as an active link, then the file contains no

data. Note that due to the manner in which qkview files are generated, some information

(such as large log files) may not be included in the qkview file.

Chapter 6: How do I use the search feature?

Another way to find critical information in your qkview file is to use the search feature.

To quickly search for information, open your qkview file, enter text into the box, and

click the Search link in the upper right corner of the page. All searches are case

insensitive. Searching using regular expressions is not currently supported.

The search is specific to the navigation links on the left side of the screen. For example,

searching for a log message in the Graphs link will likely not yield any results.

Surrounding search strings with single or double quotes is not required. Including them

makes them part of the search criteria.

The Files tab provides additional search functionality. Selecting or clearing the Case

sensitive and Limit to <directory name> files check boxes enables or disables the

functions. Clearing the Limit to <directory name> files check box will revert to

searching all of the files. To display the lines that matched your search, click the down

arrow next to Show Matching Lines.

Note: Some search queries return too many results to display. Try a more specific search

string if you receive the following error message:

Your search query exceeded the maximum number of results.

Please use a narrower query.

BIG-IP® iHealth

™ User Guide 16

Chapter 7: How do I provide feedback?

If you run into any issues or have enhancement suggestions for any part of BIG-IP

iHealth, click the Feedback link at the top of any page within the BIG-IP iHealth system

to send feedback to the BIG-IP iHealth team. The BIG-IP iHealth team responds to all

feedback submissions and tracks the reported issues in an internal bug tracking system.

If you have an F5 support agreement and need immediate assistance, contact F5

Technical Support.