F5CAB4 is the fourth of the five exams required to achieve the F5 Certified Administrator (F5-CA).
This exam validates your ability to:
- Manage High Availability (HA) state and failover operations
- Troubleshoot management connectivity and system status
- Analyze logs and system events
- Perform backup/restore (UCS) and config synchronization
- Configure authentication and system services
- Interpret service status and upgrade scenarios
This exam ensures that you not only know how to create and configure objects on the F5 BIG-IP, but also how to effectively manage and maintain the device in an operational state.
It focuses on essential operational tasks such as performing failover actions, reviewing and analyzing logs, and executing backup and restore procedures, ensuring the system remains stable, available, and properly maintained in production environments.
Details of the exam
- Duration : 30 minutes
- Number of questions : about 30
- Cost : $50 USD
Study
Use the courses below to prepare for the F5CAB4 exam.
Each lesson is mapped to the exam objectives, allowing you to study at your own pace and focus on the areas that matter most.
Blueprint
Below is the official blueprint for the F5CAB4 exam, along with related articles and resources on ADC-labs to help you prepare thoroughly. Each line of the blueprint links to a dedicated article so you can study step by step and track your progress. Note that some articles cover many blueprint item at once.
| Code | Blueprint Item | Related Articles |
|---|---|---|
| F5CAB4.01 Apply procedural concepts required to manage the state of a high availability pair | Execute force to standby procedure | |
| Report current active/standby failover state | ||
| Execute force to offline procedure | ||
| Show device trust status | ||
| F5CAB4.02 Identify management connectivity configurations | Identify the configured management-IP address | Management IP Overview |
| Interpret port lockdown settings to Self-IP | Port Lockdown | |
| Show remote connectivity to the BIG-IP Management interface | Management IP Overview | |
| Explain management IP connectivity issue | Management IP Overview | |
| Identify HTTP/SSH access list to management-IP address | HTTPd-SSHd | |
| F5CAB4.03 Identify and report current device status | Interpret the LCD panel warning messages | |
| Use the dashboard to gauge the current running status of the system | ||
| Review the Network Map in order to determine the status of objects | ||
| Interpret current systems status via GUI or TMSH | ||
| Interpret high availability and device trust status | ||
| F5CAB4.04 List which log files could be used to find events and/or hardware issues | Identify use of /var/log/ltm, var/log/secure, /var/log/audit | |
| Identify severity log level of an event | ||
| Identify event from a log message | ||
| F5CAB4.05 Apply procedural concepts required to create, manage, and restore a UCS archive | Execute UCS backup procedure | |
| Execute UCS restore procedure | ||
| Summarize the use case of a UCS backup | ||
| Explain proper long-term storage of UCS backup file | ||
| Explain the contents of the UCS file (private keys) | ||
| F5CAB4.06 Explain authentication methods | Explain how to create a user | |
| Explain how to modify user properties | ||
| Explain options for remote authentication provider | ||
| Explain use of groups using remote authentication provider | ||
| F5CAB4.07 Identify configured system services | Show proper configuration for: DNS, NTP, SNMP, syslog | |
| F5CAB4.08 Explain config sync | Demonstrate config sync procedure | |
| Report errors which occur during config sync | ||
| Explain when a config sync is necessary | ||
| Show config sync status | ||
| Compare configuration timestamp | ||
| F5CAB4.09 Given a scenario, determine device upgrade eligibility | Determine when to upgrade software | |
| Determine when to upgrade platform | ||
| Determine steps to minimize upgrade downtime | ||
| F5CAB4.10 Given a scenario, interpret Service status | Compare active vs inactive ADC elements | |
| Infer services for given netstat output | ||
| Determine whether a service is listening on a given port based on netstat output |