F5 BIG-IP – Device Drivers

IG5 device driver for F5 BIG-IP iControl REST API automation — is-alive, run-command, get-config, and set-config

F5 BIG-IP is an application delivery controller providing load balancing, traffic management, and application security for on-premises and cloud environments, configured via TMOS/TMSH or the iControl REST API.

This project provides two ways to automate against BIG-IP: netmiko over SSH/TMSH (the same pattern used for Cisco IOS and Arista EOS), or a custom IG5 device driver over the iControl REST API for HTTP-based access — see Inventory Manager Configuration below.

Requirements: Itential Platform >= 6.4 · Itential Gateway >= 5.0 (only if using the f5-rest device driver)

Table of Contents

• Contents
• Inventory Manager Configuration
  • Option 1: netmiko (SSH/TMSH)
  • Option 2: f5-rest (iControl REST over HTTP)
• Device Drivers
  • f5-rest

Contents

Inventory Manager Configuration

BIG-IP devices can be automated two ways. Pick per device based on whether you want CLI (TMSH) or REST (iControl) access — both can coexist across different nodes in the same inventory.

Option 1: netmiko (SSH/TMSH)

Itential Platform ships with a netmiko driver for F5 BIG-IP out of the box — no additional driver install required. Broker actions (is-alive, run-command, get-config, set-config) are wired automatically when the inventory is created with createBrokerActions: true, the same as Cisco IOS and Arista EOS.

{
  "name": "my-bigip-device",
  "attributes": {
    "itential_host": "192.0.2.100",
    "itential_port": 22,
    "itential_driver": "netmiko",
    "itential_platform": "f5_tmsh",
    "itential_user": "admin",
    "itential_password": "changeme"
  }
}

Option 2: f5-rest (iControl REST over HTTP)

Use this instead of netmiko when you want HTTP-based access to BIG-IP's iControl REST API rather than SSH/TMSH — no SSH access required, all operations go over HTTPS to the management interface. Requires the f5-rest device driver registered in Itential Gateway 5.x.

See device-drivers/f5-rest/README.md for full setup details, authentication options (token, OAuth2 client credentials, Basic, or a static Bearer token), and a generic REST passthrough (f5-rest-call) for calling any iControl endpoint directly from a workflow.

Node attributes:

{
  "itential_host": "10.0.0.227",
  "itential_port": 8443,
  "itential_driver": "f5-rest",
  "itential_user": "admin",
  "itential_password": "password",
  "itential_driver_options": {
    "f5-rest": {
      "auth_method": "token",
      "get_config_command": "tmsh list all-properties",
      "login_provider": "tmos",
      "save_config": true,
      "timeout": 30,
      "verify_ssl": false
    }
  }
}

Action mapping — wire the four broker contracts to this driver's IG5 services, replacing cluster-itential with your own cluster_id:

[
  {
    "name": "is-alive",
    "action_type": "iag5-service",
    "action_config": {
      "service_name": "f5-rest-is-alive",
      "cluster_id": "cluster-itential"
    },
    "action_parameters": {}
  },
  {
    "name": "run-command",
    "action_type": "iag5-service",
    "action_config": {
      "service_name": "f5-rest-run-command",
      "cluster_id": "cluster-itential"
    },
    "action_parameters": {}
  },
  {
    "name": "get-config",
    "action_type": "iag5-service",
    "action_config": {
      "service_name": "f5-rest-get-config",
      "cluster_id": "cluster-itential"
    },
    "action_parameters": {}
  },
  {
    "name": "set-config",
    "action_type": "iag5-service",
    "action_config": {
      "service_name": "f5-rest-set-config",
      "cluster_id": "cluster-itential"
    },
    "action_parameters": {}
  }
]

Device Drivers

f5-rest

A native Python iControl REST driver for IG5. Use this for HTTP-based BIG-IP automation instead of SSH/TMSH — useful when SSH access to the management interface isn't available, or when you'd rather work directly against iControl REST endpoints from a workflow.

See device-drivers/f5-rest/README.md for full documentation including all operations, authentication methods, and local testing. That README also has the Inventory Manager action mapping JSON needed to wire the broker contracts (is-alive, run-command, get-config, set-config) to this driver's IG5 services.

Quick start — register services in IG5:

iagctl db import device-drivers/f5-rest/import.yaml --force

Or copy the services and decorators blocks from import.yaml into your own import.yml.

Dependencies: requests>=2.28.0