Starting in, if I recall correctly, version 9.4.3 F5 introduced binary stores for configuration files. For those of us who enjoyed the access of files such as bigip.conf bigip_base.conf this made modifying these files impossible. Here is a technique that will allow you to modify and load both bigip.conf and bigip_base.conf.
If you were not aware /config/bigip.conf was the original configuration file that contains configuration elements that are shared between redundant devices (unit 1 and unit 2).
bigip_base.conf originally contained the configuration elements that are unique to a single device, such as VLANs, self IPs, default route for the management interface, etc…
Here are the commands for loading configuration from the command line:
This command dumps the configuration from memory:b export filename.ext
This command parses the target file to prove that it is compatible with the running configuration:
b verify load filename.ext
This command saves the newly loaded configuration into the memory resident database:
b save all
This command loads the target file into the running configuration:
b import filename.ext
This command merges the target file into a running configuration without altering existing configuration elements:
b merge filename.ext