Deployment guide¶
To deploy F5 VNF Manager blueprint solutions, do the following:
- Do one of the following to launch an instance in your private cloud environment:
- Do one of the following to enable external access to the F5 VNF Manager:
- Add a floating IP in OpenStack. This step is optional for VNF Manager version 1.3.0 and later.
- Add an external IP in VMware
- Secure access to your F5 VNFM.
- Define your system secrets. For help defining secrets, see the Secrets reference guide.
- Define parameters in the inputs file. For inputs definitions, see the Blueprint inputs reference guide.
- Deploy a local F5 blueprint solution.
Once you complete these deployment steps, consult the supporting reference topics for more details about using the F5 VNFM.
Secure access to your F5 VNFM¶
To access your VNFM, using https point your browser to the IP address you created in the previous steps and assigned to your management network.
For example, in OpenStack, find your IP address here:
For example, in vSphere ESXi, find your IP address here:
Login to VNFM using username: admin and password: admin.
To change your username and password in VNFM, on the left-side menu, click the Tenant Management blade, and set a complex admin password. Learn more about User Management and Tenant Management.
Important
F5 recommends managing your VNFM administration account using a role-based access control (RBAC) method, such as LDAP or Active Directory. Learn more about integrating with LDAP. At a minimum, set a complex admin password.
Define parameters in the inputs.yaml file¶
The F5 blueprints use an inputs.yaml file that you must edit, adding your system definitions:
You must configure a BIG-IQ before deploying a VNFM Gi LAN or Gi Firewall solution blueprint. You can do this manually, or use the F5 VNF BIG-IQ blueprint solution to automate the configuration. To use the F5 VNF BIG-IQ blueprint, open one of the following inputs file, copy and paste the sample inputs file into a new file, change the parameter values according to your application and network requirements, and then save the file locally:
VIM VNFM Solution Version YAML (for UI) VNFM Solution Version JSON (for REST API) Red Hat OpenStack Version 10 or Version 13 VNF-BIG-IQ 1.2.1 and 1.3.0 VNF-BIG-IQ 1.2.1 and 1.3.0 VMware vSphere ESXi Version 6.5 VNF-BIG-IQ 1.2.1 and 1.3.0 VNF-BIG-IQ 1.2.1 and 1.3.0 Depending on your VNFM solution, VNFM version, and VIM, open one of the following YAML or JSON blueprint solution files:
VIM VNFM Solution Version YAML (for UI) VNFM Solution Version JSON (for REST API) Red Hat OpenStack Version 10 or Version 13 Gi LAN 1.1, 1.1.1, 1.2.1, and 1.3.0
Gi LAN 1.1, 1.1.1, 1.2.1, and 1.3.0
VMware vSphere ESXi Version 6.5 Copy and paste the contents of the sample inputs yaml file into a new file and change the parameter values according to your application and network requirements. See the Blueprint inputs reference guide for parameter descriptions to help you define your inputs.YAML file.
Save the inputs file(s) locally. You will upload blueprint YAML file(s) into VNFM in Step 6, Deploy local F5 (Gilan) blueprint.
Deploy local F5 (Gi LAN) blueprint¶
Once you change all the values in the blueprint inputs file(s) and save it locally, upload the file into F5 VNF Manager. The inputs file will define all required parameters for the following blueprint files, depending on the solution you selected:
- F5-VNF-Service-Layer-Base.yaml
- F5-VNF-BIG-IQ.yaml
- F5-VNF-Service-Layer-Firewall.yaml
- F5-VNF-Service-Layer-GiLAN.yaml
- Open F5 VNFM, click Local Blueprints, and then in the F5-BIGIQ main blueprint tile click Deploy.
Tip
You can manually configure your own BIG-IQ utility; however, F5 recommends automating this process by deploying this F5-VNF-BIG-IQ blueprint. If deploying the F5-VNF-BIG-IQ blueprint from a VMware vSphere ESXi VIM, you must NOT use 192.168.1.200 and 192.168.1.245 IP addresses on the same network the F5 VNF Manager is connected, until AFTER you deploy the F5-VNF-BIG-IQ blueprint and the BIG-IQ HA pair is online. Once the BIG-IQ HA pair is online, those IP addresses become available.
- Enter a name, under Deployment Inputs, click
browse for the
inputs_[solution name].yaml
file you edited, and then click Open. The Deploy blueprint form is completed automatically with the values you entered in theinputs_[solution name].yaml
file.
Tip
Troubleshooting: If you receive an error at this point, then your inputs file is out of date and lacks the correct parameters.
- Click Deploy.
Tip
Troubleshooting: If you receive an error at this point, then it is related to a missing secrets value or a typo in a secrets value.
- On the left-side menu click the Deployments blade, in the list next to the blueprint you created in the previous step, expand
, click Install, and then click Execute. The VNFM uses the configuration node, configuring the BIG-IQ, and the deployment outputs return the BIG-IQ licensing and addressing information required by the other main F5 solution blueprints.
- Once the BIGIQ blueprint finishes executing, repeat steps 1-4, selecting one of the following blueprints, depending on the solution you selected:
- F5-VNF-Service-Layer-Base.yaml main blueprint file
- F5-VNF-Service-Layer-Firewall.yaml main blueprint file
- F5-VNF-Service-Layer-GiLAN.yaml main blueprint file
Once your blueprint install finishes executing, to view a model of your VNF installation, on the Deployments blade, click a name from the list. A model of your VNF topology appears, along with a list of all the nodes and event logs.
To add an events and logs filtering widget to this page
- In the top-right corner click your login name, select Edit Mode, and then click Add Widget.
- Scroll the list and select Events/logs filter, and then click Add selected widget.
- Scroll to the top of the page, click and drag the Events/logs filter widget down the page, and place it just before the Deployment Events/Logs pane on the page.
- Close the Edit mode dialog box. You can now filter event/logs based on type, log level, and other similar criteria. Learn more about events and logs.
To view the list of applicable workflows (for example, scale out group, heal VE, etc.) that you can run, on the Deployments blade, click
next to your Gilan or Base deployment in the list. A list of applicable workflows for your solution appears. Learn more about workflows and which workflows to run for which deployments.
Using the same VNF Manager, you can download and define another inputs YAML file for another local F5 blueprint, and repeat these deploy blueprint steps.
Supporting deployment reference topics¶
Consult the following topics, which provide further discussion and how-to information for performing the previous setup and deployment steps.
User management¶
Displays the list of users and enables their management. This widget is only available to admin users.
The widget displays the following information regarding each of the user groups:
- Username
- Last login timestamp
- Admin - whether or not the user is sys admin on the VNF Manager (you can check and uncheck this filed to make changes)
- Active - whether or not the user is active (you can check and uncheck this field to make changes)
- # Groups - number of groups the user is a member of
- # Tenants - number of tenants the user is assigned with
The on the right of every tenant allows performing the
following operations:
- Setting the user’s password
- Adding/removing the user to/from user groups
- Assigning/Unassigning the user with/from the tenant
- Deleting the user - possible only if the user does not belong to any groups, assigned to any tenants and is the creator of any resources on the manager.
Also, using Add on the top-right corner of the widget, you can create new users. Notice that if you choose to authenticate the users in front of an external user management system, you cannot create or delete the users in VNF Manager, nor can you assign them to VNF Manager user groups, in order to prevent conflicts between the two systems, which causes security problems.

Widget settings
Refresh time interval
- The time interval in which the widget’s data will be refreshed, in seconds. Default: 30 seconds.
Tenant management¶
Displays a list of tenants on the Manager and enables tenant management. This widget is only available to admin users. The widget displays the following information regarding each of the tenants:
- Name
- Number of user-groups assigned to the tenant
- Number of users directly assigned to the tenant (not as part of groups)
The on the right of every tenant allows performing the following operations:
- Adding/removing users to/from the tenant
- Adding/removing user-groups to/from the tenant
- Deleting the tenant - possible only if the tenant has no users. User-groups or resources associated with it.
Also, clicking Add on the top-right corner of the widget, you can create new tenants.

Widget settings
Refresh time interval
- The time interval in which the widget’s data will be refreshed, in seconds. Default: 30 seconds.
LDAP¶
The vnfm ldap
command is used to set LDAP authentication that enables you to integrate your LDAP users and groups with F5 VNFM.
Note
You can use the CLI vnfm
declaration in the F5 VNF Manager ONLY.
Optional flags
These will work on each command:
-v, --verbose
- Show verbose output. You can supply this up to three times (for example, -vvv).-h, --help
- Show this message and exit.
Set command¶
Usage
vnfm LDAP set [OPTIONS]
Set F5 VNF Manager to use the LDAP authenticator.
Required flags
-s, --ldap-server TEXT
- The LDAP address against which to authenticate, for example: ldaps://ldap.domain.com.-u, --ldap-username TEXT
- The LDAP admin username to be set on the F5 VNF Manager.-p, --ldap-password TEXT
- The LDAP admin password to be set on the F5 VNF Manager.-d, --ldap-domain TEXT
- The LDAP domain to be used by the server.
Optional flags
-a, --ldap-is-active-directory
- Specify whether the LDAP used for authentication is Active-Directory.-e, --ldap-dn-extra TEXT
- Additional LDAP DN options.
Example
$ vnfm ldap set -s [LDAP SERVER ADDRESS] -u [LDAP ADMIN USERNAME] -p [LDAP ADMIN PASSWORD] -d [DOMAIN NAME]
Integrate with LDAP¶
VNFM provides a user management mechanism, so you can define different users with different permissions, and upon login perform authentication and authorization to control the users’ access to resources.
You define and manage the users either in F5 VNFM itself, or you can configure your Manager to integrate with an LDAP-based user-management system. You must select one of these options, as you cannot do both, and you must configure your manager accordingly upon installation or immediately afterwards, when no actions are performed on it yet.
Tip
User Management Credentials: You must have F5 VNFM administrator permissions to perform user management-related actions.
Manage users by integrating with an LDAP system¶
If you choose to integrate with an external user-management system, make sure your manager is configured accordingly:
- Record the URL of the LDAP service and define sufficient credentials to an LDAP user with search permissions.
- Configure F5 VNFM with the LDAP configuration during the installation process, in the
ldap
section of the config.yaml file. - Or, use the API to configure an LDAP connection after F5 VNFM Manager is installed, using the
vnfm ldap set
command, as long as the Manager is clean, meaning that no tenants, groups, users or resources exist.
Usage
vnfm ldap set [OPTIONS]
Options
-s, --ldap-server TEXT
- The LDAP server address to authenticate against [required]-u, --ldap-username TEXT
- The LDAP admin username to be set on the F5 VNF manager [required]-p, --ldap-password TEXT
- The LDAP admin password to be set on the F5 VNF manager [required]-d, --ldap-domain TEXT
- The LDAP domain to be used by the server [required]-a, --ldap-is-active-directory
- Specify whether the LDAP used for authentication is Active-Directory-e, --ldap-dn-extra TEXT
- Extra LDAP DN options-h, --help
- Show this message and exit
Example
Note
You can use the CLI vnfm
declaration in the F5 VNF Manager ONLY.
vnfm ldap set -a -s ldap://<LDAP SERVER IP>:389 -u <LDAP ADMIN USER> -p <LDAP ADMIN USER PASSWORD> -d <DOMAIN.com>
How F5 VNF Manager works with the LDAP service¶
When integrating with an LDAP system, F5 VNFM will prevent you to manage users from the Manager, to prevent conflicts between the two systems which can cause security problems. Instead, users will log into F5 VNFM with their LDAP credentials, and the Manager will authenticate them against the LDAP service. To finish the authorization process into F5 VNFM, the users will have to belong (directly, or using nested groups) to an LDAP group connected to one or more F5 VNFM Tenants.
Connect F5 VNFM user-groups with the LDAP groups¶
To create this connection between the LDAP system and F5 VNFM you must create user-groups in F5 VNFM that represent your LDAP user groups. You then assign those F5 VNFM groups to tenants in F5 VNF Manager, with the desired roles. When a user logs into F5 VNFM, a request is sent to the LDAP system for authentication and identification of the groups to which the user belongs (including groups that contains groups that eventually contains the user - aka nested groups). F5 VNFM then identifies the tenants that the F5 VNFM groups (that represent the LDAP groups) can access, and allows user access according to the permissions the roles of the groups provide. For more information on creating a user group, see either the CLI command, or the Tenant Management.
In case a user belongs to multiple groups which are assigned to the same tenant with different roles, the user’s permissions in the tenant will be a sum of all the permission it receives from the different groups. For example, user-A is a member of two Groups in LDAP – “team_leaders,” and “devs.” The team_leaders group is associated in F5 VNFM with the group “all_tenants_viewers”, which is assigned to all of the manager’s tenants with the role “Viewer.” The “devs” group is associated in F5 VNFM with the group “dev_users,” which is assigned to dev_tenant with the role “User.” So, user-A is now assigned to dev_tenant twice – once as a Viewer and once as a User. Upon logging into this tenant, the permissions user-A will have will be a sum of the permissions of the two roles. After users have logged in to F5 VNFM, they are visible in the users list, but you cannot perform any management actions on their profiles.

User/LDAP relationship
Tip
LDAP passwords are not saved in VNF Manager.
Roles management with Ldap¶
Upon assigning a user or a user-group to a tenant, we must specify their permissions in this tenant. Do this by adding a User Role. In user creation, define whether the users are admins or not. If admins, they automatically have maximal permissions to all tenants. If not, they are marked as “default” users, meaning they exist in the system but must be explicitly assigned to specific tenants with specific roles.
When using LDAP, do not manage the users, but the user-groups, so the roles are managed through them.
When a user-group is added to a tenant, a specific tenant role must be assigned to it. By adding a user to a specific user-group, that user will inherit that user-group tenant-association along with its tenant-role (and the same for all the groups that recursively contain this group).
Add users manually¶
If you choose not to integrate F5 VNF Manager with LDAP systems, you must add each user individually and set a password for them. You can also create user-groups and add users to them. You can assign users and user groups to one or more tenants.
Use the Secret Store¶
The secrets store provides a secured variable storage (key-value pairs) for data that you do not want to expose in plain text in F5 VNFM blueprints, such as login credentials for a platform. The values of the secrets are encrypted in the database. We use the Fernet encryption of cryptography library, which is a symmetric encryption method that makes sure that the message encrypted cannot be manipulated/read without the key. When you create a secret, the key value can be a text string or it can be a file that contains the key value. The secret store lets you make sure all secrets (for example, credentials to IaaS environments) are stored separately from blueprints, and that the secrets adhere to isolation requirements between different tenants. You can include the secret key in your blueprints and not include the actual values in the blueprints.
Update a secret with a shown value¶
- Updating the secret’s value and visibility or deleting the secret is allowed according to the user roles and the visibility of the secret.
- The secret’s Creator and Admins are the only users that can update the secret’s visibility and the “is_hidden” attribute.
Create a secret from the CLI¶
You can use the vnfm secrets
command to manage VNFM secrets (key-value pairs) in the F5 VNF Manager ONLY.
$ vnfm secrets create test -s test_value …
Secret ``test`` created
…
Create a secret from the F5 VNFM Console¶
Secret Store Management is performed from the System Resources page in the VNFM Console.
Click Create in the Secret Store Management widget.
Insert the following values:
- The secret key
- The secret value (or select the secret file from your file repository)
- The visibility level, which is the icon of the green man. Click this icon to toggle visibility settings between tenant (green man), private (red padlock), and global (blue earth).
- If the value of the secret should be hidden
Click Create.
Click
for viewing the secret value.
To change the visibility level of the secret, click
in the key row.
To hide the secret value, select the Hidden Value checkbox.
For updating the secret value, click
in the key row.

Manage secure communication certificates¶
Use the following information to securely manage communication and remote access authorization.
Customize SSL for internal communication¶
You can override the internal Manager certificate, and the CA
certificate in the F5 VNF Manager configuration. To provide a custom
internal CA certificate for the agents to use, add the
ca_certificate
and optionally ca_key
inputs, which you must store in the /opt/cloudify/config.yaml file.
To provide a custom internal certificate, use the internal_certificate
and internal_key
inputs. If none
are provided, F5 VNFM will generate the CA and the internal certificate automatically.
NOTES:
- If provided, the internal certificate must be generated with the appropriate subjectAltName extension to allow connections over every used Manager IP or hostname. The internal certificate must be signed by the CA certificate.
- If the
ca_certificate
andca_key
inputs are provided, the internal certificate will be generated and signed using the provided CA. If theca_certificate
is provided, butca_key
is NOT provided, then F5 VNFM cannot generate the internal certificate and theinternal_certificate
andinternal_key
inputs are required. - In order to use a F5 VNF Manager cluster, the CA key must be present - either generated automatically by F5 VNFM, or passed in the
ca_key
input.
SSL mode for external communication¶
F5 VNF manager, by default, doesn’t use SSL for external communication. You can set the manager to use ssl for the external communication during bootstrap or after bootstrap.
During bootstrap, edit the manager blueprint input. In the
Security Settings section, set ssl_enabled
parameter to true, in
order to set the manager ssl mode.
Set the rest_certificate and rest_key parameters, to use your own certificate. If missing, the manager will auto-generate the certificate.
After bootstrap, use cfy ssl
command to enable or disable
the ssl mode. You can also change the manager certificate by replacing
the files under /home/admin/files/ssl/
. The relevant files include:
cloudify_external_cert.pem and cloudify_external_key.pem.
When bootstrapping with ssl mode, during the bootstrap the certificate will be copied to the local cli-profile. When using CA signed certificate, you’ll need to update it in the cli-profile (to contain the CA certificate and not the manager certificate) or to remove it (depends on the organization configuration).
In order to update the certificate in the cli-profile, run the following command:
cfy profile set --rest-certificate CA_CERT_PATH
In case you renew the certificate, just update it in the manager, in the /home/admin/files/ssl directory.
Additional Security Information¶
- All services required by F5 VNF Manager run under the VNFM (and not root) user in the manager VM. The only exception is the parent process of Nginx, which runs as root in order to enable use of port 80. It is not recommended to change this behavior.
- A secrets store is implemented inside the F5 VNF Manager PostgreSQL database, which provides a tenant-wide variable store.
- Through usage of the secrets store, a user can ensure all secrets (such as credentials to IaaS environments, passwords, and so on) are stored securely and separately from blueprints, and adhere to isolation requirements between different tenants.
- Users need not know the actual values of a secret parameter (such as a password), since they can just point to the secrets store.
- Secrets can be added to the store using a
SET
function, and retrieved viaGET
. - Plugins can access the secrets store, to leverage the secrets when communicating with IaaS environments.
- F5 VNF Manager instances must be secured via SSL to ensure secrets are not passed on an unencrypted communication channel.
- Using PostgreSQL ensures that secrets are replicated across all F5 VNF Manager instances within a cluster, as part of HA.
Events and logs¶
Displays the logs and events of all the executions in the current tenant, according to the user’s permissions. You can configure the fields that are displayed and can choose to indicate in colors success and failure messages.

Widget settings
Refresh time interval
- The time interval in which the widget’s data will be refreshed, in seconds. Default: 2 secondsList of fields to show in the table
You can choose which fields to present. By default, these are the fields presented:- Icon
- Timestamp
- Blueprint
- Deployment
- Workflow
- Operation
- Node Name
- Node Id
- Message
You can also choose to add the field “Type,” which will present the log
level in case of a log, and event type in case of an event. *
Color message based on type
- when marked as “on,” successful events
will be colored blue, and failures in red. Default: On *
Maximum message length before truncation
- Allow to define the length
of the messages presented in the table. Default: 200.
Note
Even if the message is being truncated in the table itself, you can see the full message upon overring.
Maintenance mode¶
When in maintenance mode, VNF Manager activity is suspended. It rejects all requests, and does not perform any action other than to display the status of the Manager and it’s version, and to execute sub-commands of the maintenance mode.
VNF Manager has three maintenance states, activated, activating, and deactivated. To view the current maintenance state of the Manager, run vnfm maintenance-mode status. The state is also displayed when you run vnfm status (so long as the state is not deactivated).
- Activated - VNF Manager is in maintenance mode. It ignores all requests except for vnfm status, vnfm –version and sub-commands of vnfm maintenance-mode.
- Activating - An intermediate state in which the VNF Manager is not fully in maintenance mode. Only requests that trigger executions are blocked. This state enables active executions to complete and prevents new executions from being started.
- Deactivated - VNF Manager operates normally. No requests are blocked.
Usage and Flow
By default, the maintenance mode state is deactivated.
To activate maintenance mode, run vnfm maintenance-mode activate. VNF Manager either enters the activated or activating state.
To view the current status of the maintenance mode, run vnfm maintenance-mode status.
Following the activation request, if there are no active executions (running, pending, cancelling etc.), maintenance mode is activated. The output of vnfm maintenance-mode status for the activated state is as follows.
Maintenance Mode Status:
Status: activated
Activated At: <time of activation>
Activation Requested At: <time of activation request>
If there are active executions, the Manager enters the activating state.
Maintenance Mode Status:
Status: activating
Activation Requested At: <time of activation request>
VNF Manager currently has <number of active executions> running or pending executions. Waiting for them to finish before activating. After all executions have completed, the Manager enters the ‘activated’ state.
Note
Execution Details - If you run the maintenance mode status command in verbose mode, you can view detailed information about the current active executions.
Run vnfm maintenance-mode deactivate
to deactivate maintenance mode.
Running Maintenance Mode from the VNF Manager
You can manage maintenance mode by selecting Maintenance Mode in the drop-down menu adjacent to your user name.
What’s Next?