F5 big-ip! What is this and why is it on my friends MacBook?

[Skoal]

As the title suggests...

I have a friend who contacts me on occasion when he's having OS X issues. He texted the other day that while trying to access enterprise email via his CAC card (mandatory) 90% of the time he opens the page he gets an error message to the effect of "f5 big-ip could not establish a link". I've tried to read about this product but am not quite sure it's purpose and/or how the hell it found its way on his MacBook. Apparently it's an Edge viewer or Vpn connection service. I'm confused!

Anyone have any idea why this would be happening? He's tried both Safari and Chrome and has no windows product on his laptop. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[barbu]

i think he is going to have to get in touch with his help desk. That product is a security suite that is centrally managed, so he'll have to get help from whoever runs it. From the error, there is definitely a problem creating the security association for the VPN or whatever it's trying to do. Could also be a faulty card or reader i guess.

 

[petvas]

This is something for the big kids
F5 Big IP is a suite of networking products, that handle many tasks, like secure access, VPN, load balancing, firewall, reverse proxy, routing.

 

[Skoal]

Is it something that's running via the website you might be trying to visit or is it a product that's found its way on his laptop? I'm assuming the former. I've been reading about it but have never seen mention of it on my laptop and we use the same enterprise email service

 

[petvas]

The F5 Big IP is a series of hardware devices, combined with the associated software. They can be very costly (even beyond 1 million dollars - depending on configuration).
https://f5.com/products/big-ip

 

[Skoal]

Very strange he's seeing this stuff when trying to browse to websites

 

[barbu]

Very strange he's seeing this stuff when trying to browse to websites

What is his HTTP proxy configuration? And who owns the computer, i.e. is it his personal machine?

 

[DeltaMac]

There's lots of possibiblities.
Your friend's issue is likely related to the CAC card login. The login may try to connect to services that are not available from his location. He will need to contact whoever handles that login. That's likely where the F5 Big-IP issue comes from.