Today, we’ll closely examine the F5 TMOS shell, focusing on how to use the Integrated Multiservice Interface (IMI) shell and execute basic BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) commands.
What is the F5 TMOS Shell?
TMOS stands for Traffic Management Operating System, and it is the underlying operating system of the F5 BIG-IP platform. When you first log into an F5 device, you will be in the TMOS shell. From here, you can perform various configuration and administration tasks.
Switching to the IMI Shell from the TMOS Shell
In addition to the TMOS shell, F5 devices also offer the IMI shell, which provides access to a range of commands typical of network routers, including BGP commands. To access the IMI shell from the TMOS shell, you type imish:
imish
If you are running multiple Route Domains, you can run this command with -r #. The # is the Route Domain #. To get a list of these #’s, you can run the command list net route-domain id.
kcordero@(COR-MIA-F5A)(cfg-sync In Sync)(Active)(/Common)(tmos)# list net route-domain id
net route-domain 0 {
id 0
}
net route-domain RD_PROD-DMZ {
id 1
}
kcordero@(COR-MIA-F5A)(cfg-sync In Sync)(Active)(/Common)(tmos)# imish -r 1
COR-MIA-F5A.cordero.me[1]>
Running Basic BGP Commands in the IMI Shell
Once in the IMI shell, you have access to a host of commands for managing and checking the status of your network routing setup. Here’s an example of how you might use a BGP command to check the summary of your BGP peers:
show ip bgp summary
Please note that the availability of these commands and what they return will depend on the configuration of your F5 device and its role in your network routing topology.