“F5 Developing iRules for BIG-IP” training, provides networking professionals a functional understanding of iRules development. The course builds on the foundation of the Administering BIG-IP or Configuring LTM course, demonstrating how to logically plan and write iRules to help monitor and manage common tasks involved with processing traffic on the BIG-IP system. Extensive course labs consist of writing, applying and evaluating the effect of iRules on local traffic. This hands-on course includes lectures, labs, and discussions.
Students are required to complete one of the following F5 prerequisites before attending this course:
The following web-based courses, although optional, will be very helpful for any student with limited BIG-IP administration and configuration experience:
Students should understand:
This course provides networking professionals a functional understanding of iRules development. The course builds on the foundation of the Administering BIG-IP course, demonstrating how to logically plan and write iRules to help monitor and manage common tasks involved with processing traffic on the BIG-IP. Course Labs consist of writing, applying and evaluating the effect of iRules on LTM traffic. This hands-on course includes lectures, labs, and discussions.
Topics covered in this course include:
Describe the role of iRules in customizing application delivery on a BIG-IP system
• Describe best practices for using iRules
• Define event context, and differentiate between client-side and server-side contexts, request and response contexts, and local and remote contexts
• Trigger an iRule for both client-side and server-side request and response events • Assign multiple iRules to a virtual server and control the order in which duplicate events trigger
• Describe and use a testing methodology for iRule development and troubleshooting
• Use local variables, static variables, lists, arrays, the session table, and data groups to store information needed for iRule execution
• Write iRules that are optimized for runtime and administrative efficiency • Use control structures to conditionally branch or loop within an iRule
• Log from an iRule using Linux syslog-ng or TMOS high-speed logging (HSL) • Incorporate coding best practices during iRule development
• Use analyzer tools to capture and view traffic flow on both client-side and serverside contexts
• Collect and use timing statistics to measure iRule runtime efficiency
• Write iRules to help mitigate and defend from some common HTTP attacks
• Differentiate between decimal, octal, hexadecimal, floating-point, and exponential notation
• Parse and manipulate strings using Tcl commands and iRule functions
• Write iRules to access and manipulate HTTP header information
• Write iRules to collect customized statistics • Implement universal persistence via an iRule
• Modify payload content using an iRule with a stream profile
Chapter 1: Setting Up the BIG-IP System
Chapter 2: Basic Elements and Resources
Chapter 3: iRule Elements
Chapter 4: Syntax Troubleshooting
Chapter 5: iRule Optimization
Chapter 6: Security and iRules
Chapter 7: Numbers and Strings
Chapter 8: HTTP Headers and Commands
Chapter 9: External File Management: iFiles and Data Groups/Classes
Chapter 10: Profiles: Persistence, Stream, and Statistics
Chapter 11: Advanced Variables
This course is intended for system administrators, network administrators and application developers responsible for the customization of traffic flow through a BIG-IP system using iRules.