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veato's avatar
veato
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Feb 23, 2017

Pass Traffic Unmodified

I was asked a question today and wondered if anyone could help with the answer? I was asked if it is possible for traffic to pass through the F5 on it's way to its destination unmodified in any way.

 

For example if we had a user accessing SharePoint and the route was via the F5, at the point the traffic goes from F5->SharePoint, can the F5 just simply hand it over/pass it though to the back end web server unmodified? If indeed it does modify it at all.

 

I suspect the answer might depend on access policies, SSL profiles and performance features in use on the F5 virtual server but I'm happy to be corrected with a more definitive answer.

 

I believe the question came because there is a need (maybe for some testing purpose) to access an internal system without any traffic modifications but the person in question does not want to open up a direct access route from user->system and would prefer to keep the F5 in place.

 

application delivery
BIG-IP
LTM
security

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  • Nicholas_P__308's avatar
    Nicholas_P__308
    Icon for Cirrus rankCirrus
    Feb 23, 2017

    Vetao,

     

    This is referred to as a blind-ssl pass through, everything will terminate on the server itself. To set this up you typically only set a tcp-lan and tcp-wan connection proflile, no HTTP profile, no SSL client or Server certificate. This will allow the traffic to go through without modification.

     

    Depending on your setup (router's etc) you may want to check if AUTOMAP is set for SNAT, as this may change the originating IP address, which can be checked via TCPDUMP.