Fully Automate Application Delivery with Puppet and F5 - Colin Walker, F5

1. F5 Programmability and Puppet
Colin Walker, Sr. Product Management Engineer
September 2014

2. Programmability

3. What is Programmability?
• Custom business logic to solve complex
problems
• Glue to hold together deployments
• Turns “Not possible” into “with a little work…”
• Offers the ability to be infinitely tunable
• Leaves no deployment behind
© F5 Networks, Inc. 3

4. Programmability – Required for App Fluency
© F5 Networks, Inc. 4

5. What is Programmability at F5?
iRules iControl iApps iCall iSense tmsh
Data Plane
Programmability
Programmable
Management API in
SOAP and REST
Enterprise Apps,
Orchestration and
BIG-IQ
Event based
handlers
Scriptable
monitors
On-box Tcl based
shell and
programming
utility
DevCentral
© F5 Networks, Inc. 5

6. Automation and Deployment

7. “High performing organizations deploy code 30
times more often and 8000 times faster than their
peers, deploying multiple times a day, versus an
average of once a month. They also have double
the change success rate and restore service 12
times faster than their peers. The net results are
lower business risk and more operational agility.”
—2013 State of DevOps Report,
Puppet Labs
© F5 Networks, Inc. 7

8. Typical Application Deployment
© F5 Networks, Inc. 8

9. Typical Application Deployment
© F5 Networks, Inc. 9

10. REST

11. Why REST? Why Now?
• An application programming interface (API) simply specifies how
some software components should interact with each other
API Server
• Traditional APIs were SOAP/CRUD based using XML
or JSON – REST APIs are more standards based
© F5 Networks, Inc. 11

12. iControl – SOAP to REST
• iControl – The original control plane automation tool from F5
• Programmatic access to anything that you can do via the CLI or GUI
• Remote API access
• SOAP/XML based
• iControl REST – A new approach to remote BIG-IP scripting
• REST based architecture uses simple, small command structures.
• Tied directly to tmsh commands
• Commands you know, very low bar to entry
• Less barrier to developers promoting functionality via API
• Symmetry between GUI/CLI & API dev/maintenance
• Rapid development and rollout
© F5 Networks, Inc. 12

13. tmsh vs iControl REST?
tmsh:
modify ltm pool http-pool members modify { 10.133.20.60:any { session user-disabled } }
iControl REST:
curl -k -u admin:admin -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X PUT -d '{"session": "user-enabled"}'
https://localhost/mgmt/tm/ltm/pool/test_1-pool/members/10.133.20.60:any
© F5 Networks, Inc. 13

14. Perl – Create Virtual:
# create virtual
&create_http_virtual_server($bigip, VS_NAME, VS_ADDRESS, VS_PORT, POOL_NAME);
print "created virtual server "" . VS_NAME . "" with destination " . VS_ADDRESS . ":" .
"...n";
sub create_http_virtual_server {
my ($bigip, $name, $address, $port, $pool) = @_;
# define virtual properties
my %payload;
$payload{'kind'} = 'tm:ltm:virtual:virtualstate';
$payload{'name'} = $name;
$payload{'description'} = 'A Perl REST::Client test virtual server';
$payload{'destination'} = $address . ':' . $port;
$payload{'mask'} = '255.255.255.255';
$payload{'ipProtocol'} = 'tcp';
$payload{'sourceAddressTranslation'} = { 'type' => 'automap' };
$payload{'profiles'} = [
{ 'kind' => 'ltm:virtual:profile', 'name' => 'http' },
{ 'kind' => 'ltm:virtual:profile', 'name' => 'tcp' }
];
$payload{'pool'} = $pool;
my $json = encode_json %payload;
$bigip->POST('ltm/virtual', $json);
© F5 Networks, Inc. 14
}
More RESTful Examples
Python – Create Virtual:
# create virtual
create_http_virtual(bigip, VS_NAME, VS_ADDRESS, VS_PORT, POOL_NAME)
print "created virtual server "%s" with destination %s:%s..." % (VS_NAME, VS_ADDRESS,
VS_PORT)
def create_http_virtual(bigip, name, address, port, pool):
payload = {}
# define test virtual
payload['kind'] = 'tm:ltm:virtual:virtualstate'
payload['name'] = name
payload['description'] = 'A Python REST client test virtual server'
payload['destination'] = '%s:%s' % (address, port)
payload['mask'] = '255.255.255.255'
payload['ipProtocol'] = 'tcp'
payload['sourceAddressTranslation'] = { 'type' : 'automap' }
payload['profiles'] = [
{ 'kind' : 'ltm:virtual:profile', 'name' : 'http' },
{ 'kind' : 'ltm:virtual:profile', 'name' : 'tcp' }
]
payload['pool'] = pool
bigip.post('%s/ltm/virtual' % BIGIP_URL_BASE, data=json.dumps(payload))

15. What’s this REST stuff?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer
• REST is based on the following simple ideas:
• REST uses URIs to refer to and to access resources
• Uses HTTP methods to change the state of resources:
GET – retrieve details or a list of something
POST – create something on the server side
PUT – update something on the server side
DELETE – delete something on the server side
© F5 Networks, Inc. 15

16. And Who is this JSON guy?
XML JSON
<person>
<first name>Johnny</firstname>
<last name>Userguy</lastname>
</person>
{ "person":
{
"firstname": “Johnny",
"lastname": “Userguy"
}
}
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is simply a way of passing data to a
web page in a serialized way that is very easy to reconstitute into a
javascript object.
JSON classes are built into every major javascript engine, so every
browser has JSON encode/decode support.
{
"name":"bigip-1-1",
"protocol":"HTTP",
"port": "80"
}
© F5 Networks, Inc. 16

17. What does an F5 REST call look like?
© F5 Networks, Inc. 17

18. iControl REST API

19. iControl REST API – How to start?
• Starting Point at DevCentral :
• https://devcentral.f5.com/wiki/iControlREST.HomePage.ashx
• Download Documentation:
• https://devcentral.f5.com/d/icontrol-rest-user-guide-version-1150?download=true
• Some good examples are available here:
• https://devcentral.f5.com/wiki/iControlREST.CodeShare.ashx
© F5 Networks, Inc. 19

20. iControl REST API – Direct Access
• cURL
• Web Browser
• Browser Plug-In
# curl -k -u admin:admin https://172.29.86.62/mgmt/tm/
{"items":[{"link":"https://localhost/mgmt/tm/cloud/ltm/node-addresses"},{"
link":"https://localhost/mgmt/tm/cloud/ltm/pool-members"},{"
link":"https://localhost/mgmt/tm/cloud/ltm/pools"},{"li
nk":"https://localhost/mgmt/tm/cloud/ltm/virtual-servers"},{"
link":"https://localhost/mgmt/tm/cloud/services/iapp/ht
tp_Charlie_61/health"},{"link":"https://localhost/mgmt/tm"},{"link"
:"https://localhost/mgmt/tm/shared/licensing/activation"},{"link":"
https://localhost/mgmt/tm/shared/licensing/registration"},{"link":"
https://localhost/mgmt/tm/cloud/templates/iapp"},{"link":"https://l
ocalhost/mgmt/tm/shared/sys/backup"},{"link":"https://localhost/mgm
t/tm/shared/iapp/blocks"},{"link":"https://localhost/mgmt/tm/shared
/iapp/health-prefix-map
© F5 Networks, Inc. 20

21. REST API example – list selfip
# curl -k -u admin:admin https://172.29.86.62/mgmt/tm/net/self/internal_self2 | sed s/,/,n/g
{"kind":"tm:net:self:selfstate",
"name":"internal_self2",
"generation":0,
"lastUpdatedMicros":0,
"selfLink":"https://localhost/mgmt/tm/net/self/internal_self2",
"partition":"/Common/",
"address":"10.81.60.2/8",
"floating":"disabled",
"inheritedTrafficGroup":"false",
"trafficGroup":"traffic-group-local-only",
"unit":0,
"vlan":"internal"}
© F5 Networks, Inc. 21

22. REST API Example – Self IP
© F5 Networks, Inc. 22

23. REST API – Object Creation
© F5 Networks, Inc. 23

24. Why Puppet and F5?
• Security
• $$$$ / Budgeting
• Take advantage of virtualization
• Avoid misconfiguration
• Lessened provisioning time
• Replication of efforts
• Strong Partner Integration
© F5 Networks, Inc. 24

25. “Puppet Enterprise Supported Modules, for
example, are ones that have been fully tested and
validated for use with Puppet Enterprise. A number
of such modules are already available, and new
modules for managing Microsoft SQL Server, F5
load balancers, and Arista networking equipment
are coming in the fourth quarter, the company
said.”
-Puppet-wearing devs: There's now an app (or two) for that,
The Register, Setpember, 2014
© F5 Networks, Inc. 25

26. Next Steps
• Check out the code samples on F5.com and DevCentral
• Read the programmability white paper on DevCentral:
http://www.f5.com/pdf/white-papers/the-programmable-network-white-paper.
pdf
• Provide your engineers with a starting point with free training from F5
University: https://f5.com/education/training
If I can be of further assistance please contact me:
c.walker@f5.com | @colin_walker