F5CAB4 Control Plane Administration Practice Question
Which TWO of the following tasks are performed by the BIG-IP control plane rather than the data plane?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates routinely misclassify traffic steering and load balancing decisions as control plane activities, confusing them with management plane tasks like user authentication.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Synchronizing configuration changes between high-availability peers.
The control plane manages the system's configuration, authentication, and administrative interactions. Tasks like updating the device configuration via TMSH or processing SSH/GUI logins occur in the control plane environment (Linux OS). Conversely, traffic steering and packet manipulation occur within the TMM, which is the data plane. Distinguishing these domains is vital for performance tuning, resource allocation, and troubleshooting connectivity issues, as control plane exhaustion often differs significantly from data plane resource depletion.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Processing SSL handshakes for high-volume application traffic.
Why it's wrong here
SSL handshakes for application traffic are processed by TMM to ensure performance and hardware acceleration. Processing these in the control plane would lead to significant performance bottlenecks and would not be able to handle the high throughput requirements typical of production traffic environments and modern web applications.
- ✓
Synchronizing configuration changes between high-availability peers.
Why this is correct
Config sync is a control plane operation that uses the management network to push configuration files between high-availability peers. This task requires high-level coordination of the configuration database, which is inherently a control plane function, ensuring consistency across devices in a device group or administrative cluster.
- ✗
Executing iRules for Layer 7 load balancing decisions.
Why it's wrong here
iRules are compiled and executed within TMM to facilitate high-speed decision-making for traffic flows. Executing these in the control plane would be inefficient and would introduce latency into every packet or connection request, rendering the BIG-IP system unsuitable for modern, high-performance application delivery requirements and enterprise traffic loads.
- ✓
Managing user accounts and administrative access privileges.
Why this is correct
User management, including local account creation, LDAP integration, and RBAC assignment, is a core control plane function. These tasks involve interacting with the system's security database and authentication modules, which reside outside the scope of TMM and are managed by the underlying Linux operating system and control plane services.
- ✗
Forwarding packets based on the virtual server routing table.
Why it's wrong here
Packet forwarding is the primary responsibility of TMM, the data plane. The control plane does not participate in packet-by-packet forwarding or routing decisions for data plane traffic, as this would violate the core design principle of separating administrative control from high-speed application traffic processing and data transit.
About these practice questions
One of 40 original F5CAB4 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official F5 exam blueprint
This F5CAB4 practice question is part of Courseiva's free F5 certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the F5CAB4 exam.