sol8153:F5 support of third-party hardware components

clip_image001General Solution

Original Publication Date: 12/12/2007
Updated Date: 08/10/2011

F5 policies strictly prohibit the use of third-party hardware components with F5 products. For example, third-party power supplies, memory modules, hard disk drives and XFP / SFP optical components are not supported for use with F5 products, and may invalidate the product's warranty or inhibit efforts by F5 Customer Support to service or troubleshoot the altered product.

F5 Hardware Engineering and Testing teams have spent significant time and effort to ensure that all hardware components and modules sold by F5 have been tested and approved to work with our platforms to the specifications outlined in the product platform guides. Only parts tested in this manner and purchased from F5 are supported in our platforms.

To purchase add-on hardware components for your BIG-IP platform, contact your F5 Reseller or F5 Sales Representative for specifications and pricing.

You can use one of the following commands to view which ports have modules installed and the module vendor name:

BIG-IP versions 10.0.0 and later

bigpipe interface all vendor

The following command output displays that management 1.1 through 1.16 are directly connected and therefore have no module to probe. Interfaces 2.1, 2.2 and 2.4 contain F5 branded SFPs. Interface 2.3 does not forward traffic as the installed module is a third party unsupported prohibited module:

INTERFACE 1.1 - Vendor: none
INTERFACE 1.2 - Vendor: none
INTERFACE 1.3 - Vendor: none
INTERFACE 1.4 - Vendor: none
INTERFACE 1.5 - Vendor: none
INTERFACE 1.6 - Vendor: none
INTERFACE 1.7 - Vendor: none
INTERFACE 1.8 - Vendor: none
INTERFACE 1.9 - Vendor: none
INTERFACE 1.10 - Vendor: none
INTERFACE 1.11 - Vendor: none
INTERFACE 1.12 - Vendor: none
INTERFACE 1.13 - Vendor: none
INTERFACE 1.14 - Vendor: none
INTERFACE 1.15 - Vendor: none
INTERFACE 1.16 - Vendor: none
INTERFACE 2.1 - Vendor: F5 NETWORKS INC
INTERFACE 2.2 - Vendor: F5 NETWORKS INC
INTERFACE 2.3 - FINISAR CORP
INTERFACE 2.4 - Vendor: F5 NETWORKS INC

BIG-IP versions 9.4.0 through 9.4.8
guishell -c "select NAME,VENDOR_NAME from interface where name like '%'"
The following command output displays that management 1.1 through 1.16 are directly connected and therefore have no module to probe. Management 2.1 and 2.2 contain F5 branded SFPs, while 2.3 and 2.4 contain no modules.
--------------------------
| NAME | VENDOR_NAME |
--------------------------
| mgmt | |
| 1.10 | |
| 1.11 | |
| 1.12 | |
| 1.13 | |
| 1.14 | |
| 1.15 | |
| 1.16 | |
| 1.9 | |
| 2.1 | F5 NETWORKS INC |
| 2.2 | F5 NETWORKS INC |
| 1.1 | |
| 1.2 | |
| 1.3 | |
| 1.4 | |
| 1.5 | |
| 1.6 | |
| 1.7 | |
| 1.8 | |
| 2.3 | |
| 2.4 | |
--------------------------
21 rows 0.184s (mcpj: 0.018s, hsql: 0.157s, format: 0.009s)
The following command will only display the ports that allow modules and the vendor names of the modules installed:
guishell -c "select NAME,VENDOR_NAME from interface where SFP_MEDIA='true' and STATUS='1'"
In the command output, 2.3 does not forward traffic as the installed module is a third party unsupported prohibited module:
--------------------------
| NAME | VENDOR_NAME |
--------------------------
| 2.1 | F5 NETWORKS INC |
| 2.2 | F5 NETWORKS INC |
| 2.3 | FINISAR CORP |
| 2.4 | F5 NETWORKS INC |
--------------------------
4 rows 0.188s (mcpj: 0.018s, hsql: 0.161s, format: 0.009s)