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James_Smith_299
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Sep 21, 2018
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Differences between Disabled vs. Force Offline (Pool Member)

I find the distinctions between Disabled vs. Force Offline somewhat unclear in certain detail. Both options sounds graceful wherein all existing connections are allowed to timeout and not brute force dropped? Does persistence session refer to a persistence record?

 

https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K13310

 

  1. When set to Disabled, a node or pool member continues to process persistent and active connections. It can accept new connections only if the connections belong to an existing persistence session.

     

  2. When set to Forced Offline, a node or pool member allows existing connections to time out, but no new connections are allowed.

     

I'm running a Big-IP LTM running 12.1.2 HF2. We have an ongoing issue with a backend webserver that is a Pool Member of a Http Pool. Behaviour I need is maintain existing connections even after Pool Member has been "Forced Offlined"

 

Should I go with Force Offline?

 

  • Hi james,

     

    So first of keep in mind that multiple transactions between the same client and server, completed over the same established TCP connection are considered a session. So you have multiple TCP connection trough the same session, and in this case session persistence is required for FW user to them same backend server to maintain session.

     

    • Disabled: Specifies that the node/pool member can handle only persistent or active connections.

    That's means that F5 continues to manage connections already established and everything in the persistence table (or connection with right cookie persistence)

     

    • Forced Offline: Specifies that the node can handle only active connection.

    That's means that F5 continues to manage connections already established only.

     

    In both case F5 will remove the connections, but in the second case it's faster.

     

    So for your question you should "Forced Offline, you will maintain connection only.

     

    regards

     

3 Replies

  • Hi james,

     

    So first of keep in mind that multiple transactions between the same client and server, completed over the same established TCP connection are considered a session. So you have multiple TCP connection trough the same session, and in this case session persistence is required for FW user to them same backend server to maintain session.

     

    • Disabled: Specifies that the node/pool member can handle only persistent or active connections.

    That's means that F5 continues to manage connections already established and everything in the persistence table (or connection with right cookie persistence)

     

    • Forced Offline: Specifies that the node can handle only active connection.

    That's means that F5 continues to manage connections already established only.

     

    In both case F5 will remove the connections, but in the second case it's faster.

     

    So for your question you should "Forced Offline, you will maintain connection only.

     

    regards

     

    • I've marked this as the solution because it seems to have solved the problem. If this isn't true, let us know and we can revoke the accepted solution.