Community Training Classes & Labs > F5 Programmability Training Index
Module 1: Imperative Automation with the BIG-IP iControl REST API¶
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In this module you will learn the basic concepts required to interact with the BIG-IP iControl REST API. Additionally, you will walk through a typical Device Onboarding workflow that results in a fully functional BIG-IP Active/Standby pair. It’s important to note that this module will focus on showing an Imperative approach to automation.
Note
The Lab Deployment for this lab includes two BIG-IP devices. For most of the labs we will focus on configuring only the BIG-IP-A device (management IP and licensing have already been completed). BIG-IP-B already has some minimal configuration loaded. In a real-world environment it would be necessary to perform Device Onboarding functions on ALL BIG-IP devices. We are only performing them on a single device in this lab so we are able to cover all topics in the time allotted.
Note
In order to confirm the results of REST API calls made in this lab, it’s beneficial to have GUI/SSH sessions open to BIG-IP and iWorkflow devices. By default, BIG-IP and iWorkflow will log all REST API related events locally to restjavad.0.log and also can be configured to log to a remote syslog server (see https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K13080). Additionally, the ltm log file on BIG-IP will contain log messages that pertain specifically to BIG-IP local traffic management events. These log file locations are below:
- BIG-IP:
- /var/log/ltm
- /var/log/restjavad.0.log
- iWorkflow:
- /var/log/restjavad.0.log
- Lab 1.1: Exploring the iControl REST API
- Lab 1.2: REST API Authentication & ‘example’ Templates
- Lab 1.3: Review/Set Device Settings
- Lab 1.4: Basic Network Connectivity
- Lab 1.5: Building Imperative Workflows with Postman Collections
- Lab 1.6: Build a BIG-IP Cluster using a Collection
- Lab 1.7: Build a Basic LTM Config using REST Transactions