F5 Networks Troubleshooting BIG-IP

An application behind BIG-IP stops responding, and within minutes someone suggests rebooting the unit. Sometimes that clears the symptom, but it almost never explains the cause. F5 Troubleshooting BIG-IP training replaces that guesswork with a repeatable process, backed by tools that show what traffic is actually doing.

The course is F5’s Troubleshooting BIG-IP, an advanced lab-based class for people who manage BIG-IP day to day. It begins by setting up a BIG-IP system and reviewing local traffic configuration and high availability concepts, so everyone works from the same baseline.

Next comes the method itself. You learn a step-by-step process for defining a problem, gathering evidence, testing a theory, and documenting what you found. Good documentation pays off later if you open a support case and need to give F5 the right data the first time.

The technical core works from the bottom of the stack upward. You check interfaces and VLANs, confirm ARP and self IP reachability, then test routing and network communication. You also learn why some Linux tools on BIG-IP show only the host side of the system and miss traffic handled by TMM, and which tmsh commands give the full picture. CPU, memory, and the watch command complete the system checks.

Packet capture and analysis follow. You run tcpdump on BIG-IP, open the capture in Wireshark, and build filters to follow a single connection. ssldump helps with TLS problems, Fiddler exposes HTTP headers and response codes, and curl tests endpoints directly. diff and KDiff3 compare configurations between devices.

Log analysis has its own chapter, covering log files, logging levels, remote logging, the role of each BIG-IP daemon, iRule-based logging, and AVR statistics. You also work with F5 support resources, including knowledge articles, DevCentral, and iHealth.

Lab projects then give you broken configurations to diagnose. That practice carries straight into data center operations, where faster fault isolation means shorter outages.

Course Objectives

After the course, you will be able to:

• Apply a step-by-step troubleshooting methodology, from defining a problem to documenting the root cause.
• Isolate network faults from Layer 1 upward, checking interfaces, VLANs, ARP, self IPs, and routing.
• Capture traffic with tcpdump and analyze it in Wireshark using capture and display filters.
• Analyze SSL/TLS sessions and test HTTP behavior with ssldump, curl, and Fiddler.
• Interpret BIG-IP log files, logging levels, and daemon messages, and configure remote logging.
• Identify CPU and memory problems with tmsh commands, Linux tools, bigtop, and watch.
• Compare configurations between devices with diff and KDiff3.
• Use iHealth, F5 knowledge articles, and DevCentral, and prepare support cases with the right data.
• Review local traffic and high availability configuration to confirm the system is set up as intended.