I attempted to deploy F5 BIG-IP VE (Virtual Edition) to VMware ESXi 6.5 for evaluation, but an error occurred and the deployment failed. As a result, ALL, LTM's OVA image could not be deployed, and deployment succeeded with 1 SLOT model.
- Errors
- Prerequisite environment
- F5 BIG-IP VE model and version
- VE model deployability
- Investigation with old BIG-IP version, ESXi version
- Conclusion - BIG-IP VE can not be deployed to ESXi 6.5 due to postNFCData failed error
Errors
An error occurred as shown here when deploying the OVA image from the ESXi Web Client. As will be described later, since the specification of the ESXi host had enough room, I used the ALL model. (Sorry, Japanese display...)
postNFCData failed: Capacity of uploaded disk is larger than requested
Although it is said that there is insufficient DISK capacity in the message, in my environment there is around 900 GB of free space, so there is no problem taking system requirements etc into account.
Prerequisite environment
I am testing in the following environment.
- VMware ESXi 6.5
Client version: 1.18.0
Client build number: 5270848
ESXi version: 6.5.0
ESXi build number: 5310538
RAM: 8 GB / DISK: 1 TB
IE: 11.0.9600.18638 (KB 4014661)
Chrome: Version 58.0.3029.96 (64-bit)
If the UI version etc of ESXi is low, please update it as shown here.
en-designetwork.hatenablog.com
Deploy from ESXi Web Client New virtual machine > OVA / OVF template as usual.
F5 BIG-IP VE model and version
The compatibility is as follows. VE 13.0.0 is available on ESXi 6.5.
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition Supported Platforms
Download BIG-IP VE version from here (F5 account registration required, anyone can register)
Following the path BIG-IP > BIG-IP v13.x / Virtual Edition > Virtual-Edition, a list of download files is displayed. Searching ESX here (by browser) finds the following three types. (Version is information as of May 7, 2017)
- BIGIP-13.0.0.0.0.1645.ALL-scsi.ova
- BIGIP-13.0.0.0.0.1645.LTM-scsi.ova
- BIGIP-13.0.0.0.0.1645.LTM_1SLOT-scsi.ova
It is an OpenStack document, and it will be information of a generation ago, but their roles are listed here.
http://f5-openstack-docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/guides/openstack_big-ip_flavors.html
Roughly divided by HW spec, 1 SLOT: Small, LTM: Medium, ALL: Large. Select the HW spec together with the CPU limit of this throughput license.
K14810: Overview of BIG-IP VE license and throughput limits - AskF5
The DISK size of each image is as follows.
K14946: Overview of BIG-IP Virtual Edition image sizes - AskF5
As system requirements, CPU is 1 SLOT/LTM: 2 vCPU or ALL: 4 vCPU, RAM is 2 GB per CPU.
K15796: Hardware requirements on the system hosting BIG-IP Virtual Edition - AskF5
VE model deployability
Although there was no problem in terms of system requirements, we deployed each model as verification. The results are as follows.
| VE Model | Deployability |
|---|---|
| BIGIP-13.0.0.0.0.1645.ALL | X |
| BIGIP-13.0.0.0.0.1645.LTM | X |
| BIGIP-13.0.0.0.0.1645.LTM_1SLOT | O |
The smallest 1 SLOT model could be deployed.
2 vCPU, RAM 4 GB, DISK 8 GB.
Then you can use BIG-IP VE as usual from console, SSH, WebGUI.
Investigation with old BIG-IP version, ESXi version
| VE model | Deployability |
|---|---|
| ESXi 5.5 ALL deployment | O |
| ESXi 6.5 BIG-IP v12 ALL Deploy | X |
I suspected the ESXi side and deployed it with ESXi 5.5.0 (1623387) as well. This was able to deploy BIGIP-13.0.0.0.0.1645.LTM-scsi.ova without problems . Therefore, it is considered to be a problem of ESXi 6.5, not BIG-IP VE.
In ESXi 5.5, it is possible to select the vCPU and RAM of the virtual machine at the time of OVA deployment.
I tried deploying BIG-IP VE of v12 to ESXi 6.5 in doubt of the problem of BIG-IP v13, but this was an error similar to the above and could not be deployed. Also, in ESXi 6.5, the option is only NW setting, VM resources can not be selected.
Conclusion - BIG-IP VE can not be deployed to ESXi 6.5 due to postNFCData failed error
In ESXi 6.5, ALL and LTM models of F5 BIG-IP VE (Virtual Edition) can not be deployed due to errors of postNFCData failed: Capacity of uploaded disk is larger than requested . If you want to use BIG-IP VE, you need to use the minimum model of 1 SLOT.
