Objective

This guide provides instructions on how to manage an F5® Distributed Cloud Site in your cloud or edge location. A Distributed Cloud site consists of one or more Distributed Cloud nodes. To know more about sites and nodes, see Distributed Cloud Site.

Using the instructions provided in this guide, you can edit the site properties, perform scaling, perform upgrades, and remove the site.

Note: In case of multi-node sites, the nodes will not be functional if the primary outside interface is down, and they are rebooted. They will become functional only after the primary outside interface comes up.

Prerequisites

F5 Distributed Cloud Account is required.

Note: In case you do not have an account, see Create an Account.

Allow traffic from and to the Distributed Cloud public IP addresses to your network and allowlist related domain names. See Firewall or Proxy Reference for the list of IP addresses and domain names.
Resources required per node: Minimum 4 vCPUs and 14 GB RAM.

Edit Site

You can edit the site configuration by performing the following:

Step 1: Navigate to your site and open the site edit form.

Select the Cloud and Edge Sites service.
Select Manage > Site Management and then select the type of site you want to edit.
Click ... > Manage Configuration to view your site's configuration. Next click Edit Configuration in the upper right corner to edit its configuration.

Step 2: Edit the site and apply the changes.

Set the site configuration parameters according to your requirement and click Save Changes.

SiteCnfEd — Figure: Edit Site Configuration Parameters

In case of configuring the VIP addresses, you must choose from the reserved addresses. The system reserves addresses using the following mechanism of DHCP subnet Prefix Length (PL):

Prefix Length (PL)	Reserved Addresses
PL <= 25	The last 8 addresses of the subnet range are reserved, and the last address is set as broadcast address. Therefore, you can select from the rest of the 7 addresses.
PL <= 27	The last 4 addresses of the subnet range are reserved, and the last address is set as broadcast. Therefore, you can select from the rest of the 3 addresses.
PL <= 29	The last 2 addresses of the subnet range are reserved, and the last address is set as broadcast. Therefore, you can only select the other address.

Table 1: Reserved VIP Addresses

Note: For information on node replacement, see Replace Node.

Perform Auto-Scaling

You can also configure scaling for your sites after registering. Perform the following to setup auto-scaling.

Step 1: Navigate to your site and edit the worker nodes selection.

Select the Cloud and Edge Sites service.
Select Manage > Site Management and then select the type of site you want to edit.
Select ... > Manage Configuration to view your site's configuration.
Select Edit Configuration in the upper right corner to edit its configuration.
Enter a value in the Desired Worker Nodes Selection field to set the scale.
Select Save and Exit.

AutoScale — Figure: Desired Pool Count Setting

Step 2: Perform registrations for new pool nodes.

Select Manage from the configuration menu and Registrations from the Site Management in the options pane. Select the Pending Registrations tab and approve the pool nodes.

Note: Individual nodes are not visible from the site list for multi-node site. However, you can check the nodes in the Other Registrations tab.

Upgrade Site

Site upgrade includes a Volterra software upgrade and/or OS upgrade, and you can perform this from the F5 Distributed Cloud Console. The upgrade functionality is visible only if it is available and applicable for your site.

Note: Site upgrades may take up to 10 minutes per site node. Once site upgrade has completed, you must apply the Terraform parameters to site via Action menu on cloud site management page.

You can perform the software upgrade from Console using any of the following ways:

Site List: Upgrade from the site list view.

From the Sites > Site List option, select Upgrade in the SW version (Current/Status) and OS version (Current/Status) fields for your site to perform software and OS upgrades respectively.
Select Upgrade in the confirmation windows to proceed.

upg sitelist — Figure: Upgrade from Site List View

Site Dashboard: Upgrade from the site dashboard view of site monitoring.

Select on your site from the Sites > Site List to load the dashboard.
Select Upgrade in the Volterra Software and Operating System fields of the Software Version part of the dashboard.
Select Upgrade in the confirmation windows to proceed.

upg sitedb — Figure: Upgrade from Site Dashboard View

Site Status: Upgrade from the site status view of site monitoring.

Select on your site from the Sites > Site List to load the dashboard > select Site Status tab.
Select Upgrade in the Volterra Software Status and Volterra OS Status fields.
Select Upgrade in the confirmation windows to proceed.

upg sitestatus — Figure: Upgrade from Site Status View

Note: The update status is indicated in the Update Status field in the site dashboard or the site status views. In the site list view, the status is indicated in the SW version (Current/Status) and OS version (Current/Status) fields.

Remove Site

To remove site, perform the following in the Cloud and Edge Sites service.

Navigate to the site management and delete your site.
Select the Cloud and Edge Sites service.
Select Manage > Site Management and then select the type of site you want to destroy.
Locate your site, select Destroy.
Enter DELETE in the confirmation window, select Destroy.

Note: Removing the site does not delete the node in your cloud or physical locations. To remove your node from your cloud or physical device, follow the instructions provided in the Install guides.

Perform Factory Reset

You can trigger factory reset of the nodes in your site by performing the site re-registration.

Perform the following in case of factory reset:

Step 1: Navigate to registrations and perform factory reset.

In Cloud and Edge Sites service, select Sites from the configuration menu and Site List.
Select your site from the list of sites, select ... > Reregister.
Select Reregister in the confirmation window.

This removes the node from the site and changes the site state to the WAITINGNODES state. Also, the factory reset starts for the node and when the reset is complete, new registration request gets created.

Note: In case of multi-node site, re-registration removes all nodes from the site and factory reset starts for all nodes.

Note: Re-registration, as in a factory reset, is only available for physical sites. Virtual sites (sites created by a cloud provider) are "factory reset" by destroying the virtual site and then recreating it. This can be done in Manage > Site Management > <cloud provider> Sites with the Destroy and Apply buttons.

Step 2: Approve new registration for your site.

Select Manage from the configuration menu and Registrations from the Site Management in the options pane.
Select your site from the Pending Registrations tab and approve the registration.

Note: In case of multi-node sites, perform this step for each node.

Concepts

API References

Site

Manage Site

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