Last Modified: Sep 13, 2023
Affected Product(s):
BIG-IP LTM
Known Affected Versions:
11.2.1, 11.3.0, 11.4.0, 11.4.1, 11.5.0, 11.5.1, 11.5.2, 11.5.3, 11.5.4, 11.5.5, 11.5.6, 11.5.7, 11.5.8, 11.5.9, 11.5.10, 11.6.0, 11.6.1, 11.6.2, 11.6.3, 11.6.3.1, 11.6.3.2, 11.6.3.3, 11.6.3.4, 11.6.4, 11.6.5, 11.6.5.1, 11.6.5.2, 11.6.5.3
Fixed In:
12.1.1 HF2
Opened: Oct 18, 2013 Severity: 3-Major Related Article:
K25051022
While running a version of BIG-IP older than the most recent release on a new hardware platform (recently purchased or recently acquired through RMA exchange), the 'tmsh show sys hardware' command may display the Platform ID code in place of the official F5 platform name. For example, the 'tmsh show sys hardware' command may display a Platform ID like the following: Platform Name D113 instead of the official platform marketing name, such as: Platform Name BIG-IP 10000F
Custom automation scripts which depend on correctly matching F5 platform marketing names may fail to match the platform ID.
This may occur if the version of BIG-IP software installed is not the most recent release, and the hardware platform is a newer variant (due to added hardware features or other manufacturing change) than was originally supported by the older BIG-IP software release. Note: The source of the platform information comes in a file: /etc/hal/MARKETING-NAMES. With each release, this file is updated to reflect the platforms available at time of release. The marketing-names package version serves as an identifier of the age of the marketing-names package.
Update platform-identification scripts to include the relevant platform IDs among the recognized match values. Note: To get the newest marketing-names package, you must upgrade to a newer BIG-IP release, or specifically request an individual engineering hotfix to address the issue.
The system now shows marketing names of platforms that were relatively current at the time of each release, but this issue might occur on any release. It is not possible to predict whether this issue will be present on a specific platform for a specific software version. This is true because the system relies on a specific file to provide all marketing names for BIG-IP platforms. That file might not be updated for every release, and additional hardware might be released after a software version is shipped. Therefore, you might have to use the platform designation rather than the marketing name in your custom automation scripts. Note: You can find marketing names of platforms here: K9476: The F5 hardware/software compatibility matrix :: https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K9476.