Manual Chapter :
Services Profiles
Applies To:
Show VersionsBIG-IP APM
- 16.0.1, 16.0.0
BIG-IP Analytics
- 16.0.1, 16.0.0
BIG-IP LTM
- 16.0.1, 16.0.0
BIG-IP PEM
- 16.0.1, 16.0.0
BIG-IP AFM
- 16.0.1, 16.0.0
BIG-IP DNS
- 16.0.1, 16.0.0
BIG-IP ASM
- 16.0.1, 16.0.0
Services Profiles
Overview of Services profiles
The BIG-IP system offers several features that you can use to
intelligently control your application-layer traffic. These features are available through
various configuration profiles.
A
profile
is a group of settings, with values, that correspond to a specific type
of traffic, such as FTP traffic. A profile defines the way that you want the BIG-IP system to
manage that traffic type. After you configure the type of profile you need, you assign it to a
virtual server.In addition to Services profiles, the BIG-IP system includes other features to help you manage
your application traffic, such as health monitors for checking the health of an FTP service, and
iRules® for querying or manipulating header or content data. Additional
profiles may be available with other modules.
About HTTP
profiles
The BIG-IP system offers several
features that you can use to intelligently control your application layer traffic. Examples of
these features are the insertion of headers into HTTP requests and the compression of HTTP server
responses.
These features are available through various configuration profiles. A
profile
is a group of settings, with values, that correspond to
HTTP traffic. A profile defines the way that you want the BIG-IP system to manage HTTP traffic. You can configure an HTTP profile to ensure that HTTP traffic management
suits your specific needs. You can configure the profile settings either when you create a
profile or after you create the profile by modifying the profile’s settings. For all profile
settings, you can specify values where none exist, or modify any default values to suit your
needs. The BIG-IP system also includes default profiles that you can use as is, if you do not
want to create a custom profile.
To manage HTTP traffic, you can use any of these profile types:
- HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)
- HTTP Compression
- Web Acceleration
In addition to the HTTP profiles, the BIG-IP system includes other features
to help you manage your application traffic, such as health monitors for checking the health of
HTTP and HTTPS services, and iRulesfor querying or
manipulating header or content data.
General HTTP properties
There are a few general settings that you can configure to create a basic HTTP type of profile that uses most of the default settings.
Proxy mode
The HTTP profile provides three proxy modes: Reverse, Explicit, and Transparent. You can
configure a custom HTTP profile that uses a specific proxy mode, and assign the custom HTTP
profile to a virtual server to manage proxying of HTTP traffic, as necessary.
Proxy Mode | Description |
---|---|
Reverse | Default. You can specify the Reverse Proxy Mode to enable the BIG-IP system to manage responses from multiple servers. |
Explicit | The Explicit Proxy Mode enables the BIG-IP system to handle HTTP proxy requests and
function as a gateway. By configuring browser traffic to use the proxy, you can control
whether to allow or deny a requested connection, based on configured policies. The Explicit
Proxy Mode requires a DNS resolver, specified in the Explicit Proxy area of the screen. Explicit proxy mode is not
compatible with connection mirroring. Ensure that connection mirroring is disabled for
virtual servers that use HTTP profiles in Explicit proxy mode. |
Transparent | The Transparent Proxy Mode enables the BIG-IP system to forward invalid HTTP traffic instead of dropping the connection. By configuring an HTTP profile to forward invalid HTTP traffic, you can manage various atypical service provider scenarios, such as HTTP traffic from non-browser clients that function as web browsers. |
Parent profile
Every profile that you create is derived from a parent profile. You can use the default
http
profile as the parent profile, or you can use another HTTP profile
that you have already created.HTTP settings
There are several general settings that you can configure to create an HTTP type of profile.
Basic Auth Realm
The Basic Auth Realm setting provides a quoted string for the basic authentication realm. The
BIG-IP system sends this string to a client whenever authorization fails.
Fallback host
Another feature that you can configure within an HTTP profile is HTTP redirection. HTTP redirection allows you to redirect HTTP traffic to another protocol identifier, host name, port number, or URI path.
Redirection to a fallback host occurs if all members of the targeted pool are unavailable, or
if a selected pool member is unavailable. (The term
unavailable
refers to a member
being disabled, marked as down
, or having exceeded its connection limit.) When one
or more pool members are unavailable, the BIG-IP system can redirect the
HTTP request to the fallback host, with the HTTP reply Status Code 302 Found
.Although HTTP redirection often occurs when the system generates an
LB_FAILED
iRule event, redirection can also occur without the occurrence of this event, such as when:- The selected node sends anRSTafter aTCP 3WHShas completed, but before the node has sent at least a full response header.
- The BIG-IP system finds the selected node to be unreachable while receiving the body portion of a request or a pipelined request.
When configuring the BIG-IP system to redirect HTTP traffic to a fallback host, you can
specify an IP address or a fully-qualified domain name (FQDN). The value that you specify becomes
the value of the
Location
header that the server sends in the response. For
example, you can specify a redirection as
http://redirector.siterequest.com
.Fallback error codes
In addition to redirecting traffic when a target server becomes unavailable, you can also
specify the HTTP error codes from server responses that should trigger a redirection to the
fallback host. Typical error codes to specify are
500
, 501
, and
502
. Headers in HTTP requests
You can insert headers into HTTP requests. The HTTP header being inserted can include a client IP address. Including a client IP address in an HTTP header is useful when a connection goes through a secure network address translation (SNAT) and you need to preserve the original client IP address.
The format of the header insertion that you specify is generally a quoted string.
Alternatively, however, you can insert a Tools Command Language (Tcl) expression into a header
that dynamically resolves to the preferred value. When you assign the configured HTTP profile to a
virtual server, the BIG-IP system then inserts the header specified in
the profile into any HTTP request that the BIG-IP system sends to a pool or
pool member.
In addition to inserting a string such as a client IP address into an HTTP request, you can configure the BIG-IP system to insert SSL-related headers into HTTP requests. Examples are: client certificates, cipher specifications, and client session IDs. To insert these types of headers, you must create an iRule.
Content erasure from HTTP headers
You can configure a profile to erase the contents of a header from an HTTP request that is being sent from a client to a server. With this feature, you can erase header content from HTTP requests before forwarding the requests over the network. Such headers might contain sensitive information, such as user IDs or telephone numbers, that must be erased before the information is forwarded.
When you use this setting, the BIG-IP system erases the contents of
the specified header and replaces that content with blank spaces. The header itself is
retained.
This feature does not apply to HTTP responses being sent from a server to a client.
The client header with the contents to be erased must be specified as a quoted string.
Headers in an HTTP response
You can specify any headers within an HTTP response that you want the BIG-IP system to allow. If you are specifying more than one header, separate the headers
with a blank space. For example, if you type the string
Content-Type Set-Cookie
Location
, the BIG-IP system then allows the headers Content-Type
,
Set-Cookie
, and Location
.Request chunking
The chunked transfer encoding method modifies the body of an HTTP message and transfers it as a series of chunks. The
Request
Chunking
setting within an HTTP profile specifies how the BIG-IP system handles HTTP content that is chunked by the client. The BIG-IP system allows HTTP and other features to control chunking as the payload transitions through the system. The behavior with each option depends on whether the client sends chunked or unchunked requests.Option | If the request is CHUNKED on ingress... | If the request is UNCHUNKED on ingress... |
---|---|---|
Rechunk | The BIG-IP system unchunks the HTTP content, processes the data, re-adds the chunk headers, and then sends the chunked request to the server. | The BIG-IP system processes the HTTP content, adds the transfer encoding and chunk headers to the response, and then sends the chunked request to the server. |
Sustain (Default) | The BIG-IP system preserves the payload and sends it to the server as chunked. Any chunk extensions are lost. | The system can send the payload to the server as unchunked, or, if an iRule or an HTTP payload handler requests chunking, the system can add the Transfer-Encoding: Chunked headers and send the payload as chunked. |
Response chunking
The chunked transfer encoding method modifies the body of an HTTP message and transfers it as a series of chunks. The
Response Chunking
setting within an HTTP profile specifies how the BIG-IP system handles HTTP content that is chunked by the server. The BIG-IP system allows HTTP and other features to control chunking as the payload transitions through the system. The behavior with each option depends on whether the server sends chunked or unchunked responses.Option | If the response is CHUNKED on ingress... | If the response is UNCHUNKED on ingress.. |
---|---|---|
Unchunk | The BIG-IP system unchunks the response and processes the HTTP content, and passes the response to the client as unchunked. The connection closes when all data is sent to the client as indicated by the Connection: Close header. If the content length is undefined because an HTTP payload handler modified the content, the system closes the connection. | The BIG-IP system processes the HTTP content and passes the response to the client untouched. If the content length is undefined because an HTTP payload handler modified the content, the system closes the connection. |
Rechunk | The BIG-IP system unchunks the response, processes the HTTP content, re-adds the chunk trailer headers, and then passes the response to the client as chunked. Any chunk extensions are lost. | The system adds the Transfer-Encoding: Chunked headers and sends the payload to the client as chunked. |
Sustain (Default) | The system preserves the payload and sends it to the client as chunked. Any chunk extensions are lost. | The system can send the payload to the client as unchunked, or, if an iRule or HTTP payload handler requests chunking, the system can add the Transfer-Encoding: Chunked headers and send the payload as chunked. |
OneConnect transformations
You can enable or disable part of the OneConnect™ feature, for HTTP/1.0
connections only. When this setting is enabled and a OneConnect profile is assigned to the
virtual server, the setting performs
Connection
header transformations, for the
purpose of keeping a client connection open. More specifically:- A client sends an HTTP/1.0 request.
- The server sends a response, which initially includes aConnection: Closeheader.
- the BIG-IP system transforms theConnection: Closeheader toConnection: Keep-Alive.
- Through use of the OneConnect profile, the server-side connection detaches, goes into the pool of available server-side connections used for servicing other requests, and eventually closes. This process is hidden from the client.
- The client-side connection remains open, operating under the assumption that the server-side connection is still open and therefore able to accept additional requests from that client.
For this feature to take effect, you must also configure a OneConnect™ profile, which enables connection pooling.
Rewrites of HTTP redirections
Sometimes, a client request is redirected from the HTTPS protocol to the HTTP protocol, which is a non-secure channel. If you want to ensure that the request remains on a secure channel, you can cause the redirection to be rewritten so that it is redirected back to the HTTPS protocol.
To enable the BIG-IP system to rewrite HTTP redirections, you use the
Rewrite Redirections setting to specify the way that you want the system to handle URIs during
the rewrite.
Note that the rewriting of any redirection takes place only in the HTTP
Location
header of the redirection response, and not in any content of the
redirection. Also note that when the virtual server is listening on a non-standard port, the
location header in the redirect responses must include an explicit port (such as
Location: http://1.2.3.3:443/
). Otherwise, the client system will simply see
Location: http://1.2.3.3/
.Possible values
When configuring the BIG-IP system to rewrite HTTP redirections, you specify one of these values:
- None
- The system does not rewrite any redirections. This is the default value.
- All
- The system rewrites the URI in all HTTP redirect responses. In this case, the system rewrites those URIs as if they matched the originally-requested URIs.
- Matching
- The system rewrites the URI in any HTTP redirect responses that match the request URI (minus an optional trailing slash).
- Nodes
- The system rewrites the hidden node IP address to a virtual server address, and rewrites the port number. You choose this value when the virtual server is not configured with a Client SSL profile (that is, when the virtual server is configured to process plain HTTP traffic only).
For values All, Matching, and Nodes, the system always hides the node IP address. Also, the system hides the node IP address independently of the protocol rewrite, with no regard to the protocol in the original redirection.
Examples of rewriting HTTP redirections
This table shows examples of how redirections of client
requests are transformed, and the
Rewrite Redirections
setting is
enabled. Note that when the virtual server is listening on a non-standard port, the location
header in the redirect responses must include an explicit port (such as Location: http://1.2.3.3:443/
). Otherwise, the client
system will simply see Location:
http://1.2.3.3/
.Original Redirection | Rewrite of Redirection |
---|---|
http://www.myweb.com/myapp/ | https://www.myweb.com/myapp/ |
http://www.myweb.com:8080/myapp/ | https://www.myweb.com/myapp/ |
Cookie encryption and decryption
You can use the BIG-IP Configuration utility to encrypt one or more cookies that the BIG-IP system sends to a client system. When the client sends the encrypted cookie back to
the BIG-IP system, the system decrypts the cookie.
X-Forwarded-For header insertion
When using connection pooling, which allows clients to make use of existing server-side
connections, you can insert the
XForwarded For
header into a request. When you
configure the BIG-IP system to insert this header, the target server can
identify the request as coming from a client other than the client that initiated the connection.
The default setting is Disabled
.Maximum columns for linear white space
You can specify the maximum number of columns allowed for a header that is inserted into an HTTP request.
Linear white space separators
You can specify the separator that the BIG-IP system should use
between HTTP headers when a header exceeds the maximum width specified by the LWS Maximum Columns
feature.
Maximum number of requests
You can specify the maximum number of requests that the system allows for a single Keep-Alive
connection. When the specified limit is reached, the final response contains a
Connection: close
header, which is followed by the closing of the connection.
The default setting is 0
, which in this case means that the system allows
an infinite number of requests per Keep-Alive connection.Proxy Via headers
You can configure the BIG-IP system to remove, preserve, or append
Via
headers in HTTP client requests, HTTP server responses, or both.Overview: Using Via headers
Via headers provide useful information about intermediate routers that can be used in network analysis and troubleshooting.
About using Via headers in requests and responses
The
Via
header, configured in an HTTP profile, provides
information about each intermediate router that forwards a message. Intermediate routers between
a client and an origin web server use the Via
header to indicate
intermediate protocols and recipients. This information can be used for the following tasks:- Identifying the intermediate routers that forward messages.
- Identifying the protocols for intermediate routers.
About identifying intermediate routers with a Via header
The
Via
header, configured in an HTTP profile, concatenates
information for each router in a response or request, separated by commas. For example, the
following Via
header includes two routers, with each router
comprising the required protocol and address:Via: 1.1 wa.www.siterequest1.com, 1.1 wa.www.siterequest2.com
When a client initiates a request with a
Via
header to an origin web
server, the origin web server returns a response with a Via
header often
following a similar path. For example, a Via
header router sequence for the
request would be 1, 2, 3, and the router sequence for the client's response would be 3, 2, 1.The inverse is true when an origin web server initiates a response with a
Via
header to a client. For example, a Via
header
router sequence for a response would be 1, 2, 3, and the router sequence for the client's request
would be 3, 2, 1.About identifying
protocols for intermediate routers with a Via header
You can identify specific protocols and versions of protocols for
intermediate routers by using a
Via
header, configured in an HTTP profile. When a client sends a request to an
origin web server, the header information is concatenated for each intermediate router, including
the protocol type (if different from HTTP) and version. The
Via
header includes both required and optional protocol information about each router, as
follows:- The HTTP protocol name is optional; however, other protocol names are required.
- The protocol version of the message is required, which for HTTP is 1.0, 1.1, and so on.
- The host name is required. For privacy purposes, however, an alias can replace the actual host name.
- The port number associated with the host name is optional. When the port number is omitted, the default port applies.
- A comment describing the router is optional, and includes whatever string you specify in theSend Proxy Via Header Host Namefield, by selectingAppendin the list forSend Proxy Via Header In RequestorSend Proxy Via Header In Response.If you prefer to replace the host name with another string, instead of appending a string to theViaheader, you must use an iRule or the command line.
Because the
Via
header includes the protocol name and version, applications are able to
acquire this information for the various intermediate routers and use it, as necessary.Via Header settings
This table describes controls and strings for
Via Header
settings in an HTTP profile.Control | Default | Description |
---|---|---|
Send Proxy Via Header In Request | Remove | Specifies whether to Remove ,
Preserve , or Append Via headers included in a client request to an origin web server.
|
Send Proxy Via Header In Response | Remove | Specifies whether to Remove ,
Preserve , or Append Via headers included in an origin web server response to
a client.
|
Send Proxy Via Header Host Name | None | Specifies a string to append as a comment when sending a
Via header in a request to an origin web server or in
a response to a client.If you prefer to replace the host name
with another string, instead of appending a string to the
Via header, you must use an iRule or the command
line. |
X-Forwarded-For header acceptance
This setting enables or disables trusting the client IP address, and statistics from the client IP address, based on the request's X-Forwarded-For (XFF) headers, if they exist.
Alternate X-Forwarded-For headers
Specifies alternative XFF headers instead of the default X-Forwarded-For header. If you are specifying more than one alternative XFF header, separate the alternative XFF headers with a blank space, such as
client1 proxyserver 129.78.138.66
.Server agent name
When you create an HTTP profile, you can specify the string used as the server name in traffic generated by the BIG-IP system. The default value is
BigIP
.Enforcement settings
There are some settings related to enforcement that you can configure to create an HTTP type of profile.
About enforcing RFC compliance
When you configure an HTTP profile within BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and enable the
Enforce RFC Compliance
setting, BIG-IP LTM performs basic RFC compliance checks as described in the latest RFC for the HTTP protocol. If a client request fails these checks, then the connection is reset.By default, the
Enforce RFC Compliance
setting in the HTTP profile is set to Disabled
. When you switch the setting to Enabled
, and the profile is assigned to the relevant virtual server, the BIG-IP system attempts to reject non-RFC-compliant HTTP traffic.If you want the BIG-IP system to perform additional compliance checks, or if a blocking page is required, you can provision the optional BIG-IP Application Firewall Manager (AFM) module and configure its HTTP Protocol Security feature. You can also provision and configure the optional BIG-IP Application Security Manager (ASM) module. If either of these modules is provisioned and configured (or both are provisioned and configured), the BIG-IP system ignores the HTTP profile's
Enforce RFC Compliance
setting altogether.Allow truncated redirects
The Allow Truncated Redirect setting determines the way in which the BIG-IP system passes through traffic, when a redirect that lacks the trailing
carriage-return and line-feed pair at the end of the headers is parsed. The default is Disabled,
which silently drops the invalid HTTP request.
Maximum header size
This setting specifies the maximum size in bytes that the BIG-IP system
allows for all HTTP request headers combined, including the request line. If the combined headers
length in bytes in a client request exceeds this value, the system stops parsing the headers and
resets the TCP connection. The default value is
32,768
bytes.Oversize client headers
The
Oversize Client Headers
setting determines the way in which the BIG-IP system passes through HTTP traffic when the Maximum Header Size
value is exceeded
by the client. The default is disabled, which rejects the connection.This feature is only available on the HTTP profile when you set the proxy mode feature to
Transparent
.Oversize server headers
The
Oversize Server Headers
setting determines the way in which the BIG-IP system passes through HTTP traffic when the Maximum Header Size
value is exceeded
by the server. The default is disabled, which rejects the connection.This feature is only available on the HTTP profile when you set the proxy mode feature to
Transparent
.Maximum header count
The Maximum Header Count setting determines the maximum number of headers in an HTTP request or
response that the BIG-IP system accepts. If a client or server sends a
request or response with the number of headers exceeding the specified value, then the connection
is dropped. The default value is 64.
Excess client headers
The
Excess Client Headers
setting specifies the way in which the BIG-IP
system passes through HTTP traffic when the Maximum Header Count
value is exceeded by the client.
The default is disabled, which rejects the connection.This feature is only available on the HTTP profile when you set the proxy mode feature to
Transparent
.Excess server headers
The
Excess Server Headers
setting specifies the way in which the BIG-IP
system passes through HTTP traffic when the Maximum Header Count
value is exceeded by the server.
The default is disabled, which rejects the connection.This feature is only available on the HTTP profile when you set the proxy mode feature to
Transparent
.Support for pipelining
Normally, a client cannot initiate a request until the previous request has received a response. HTTP/1.1 pipelining allows clients to initiate multiple requests even when prior requests have not received a response. Note, however, that each initiated request is still processed sequentially; that is, a request in the queue is not processed until the previous request has received a response.
By enabling support for pipelining on the BIG-IP system, you remove the
need to enable pipelining on the destination server itself. By default, this feature is
enabled.
Unknown methods
The
Unknown Method
setting determines the way in which the BIG-IP system
manages HTTP traffic when an unknown HTTP method is parsed. You can configure the Unknown Method
setting to allow, reject, or pass through the HTTP traffic. The default is to allow unknown methods.Known methods
In the
Known Methods
setting, the Enabled Methods
list determines the way in which the BIG-IP system manages HTTP traffic
when known HTTP methods are parsed. You configure the Known Methods
Enabled Methods
list to allow the BIG-IP system to manage specified known
methods with optimum performance. The default
Enabled Methods
list includes the following HTTP/1.1
methods.- CONNECT
- DELETE
- GET
- HEAD
- LOCK
- OPTIONS
- POST
- PROPFIND
- PUT
- TRACE
- UNLOCK
If you delete a known method from the
Enabled Methods
list, then the
BIG-IP system applies the Unknown Method
setting to manage that
traffic.Removing a standard method, such as
HEAD
or CONNECT
, causes BIG-IP functionality that depends on detecting that
method to fail to work correctly.You can add a user-defined method to the
Enabled Methods
list by typing
the method in the Add user defined method
field, and then clicking
Add
. Explicit proxy settings
When you set the proxy mode to
Explicit
, you must also configure the
settings in the Explicit Proxy area of the HTTP profile.Explicit proxy mode is not compatible with connection mirroring. Ensure connection mirroring is not enabled for virtual servers using HTTP profiles in Explicit proxy mode. This also applies to secondary virtual servers that listen on the tunnels used by HTTP explicit proxy profiles.
DNS Resolver
The
DNS Resolver
setting specifies the DNS resolver to use for DNS
inquiries handled by the virtual servers associated with the HTTP explicit forward proxy profile
you are creating.This setting is available on the HTTP profile only when you set the proxy mode
feature to
Explicit
, in which case the setting is required. If no DNS
resolver exists on the system, you can create one at . IPv6
The
IPv6
setting specifies the relative order of IPv4 and IPv6 DNS
resolutions for URIs. The default is disabled, causing the BIG-IP system to attempt an IPv4
lookup before an IPv6 lookup. Route Domain
You can configure an HTTP profile to specify the route domain that is used for outbound connect
requests for the explicit forward proxy feature. The default route domain is 0.
This setting is available on the HTTP profile only when you set the proxy mode feature to
Explicit
.Tunnel Name
The
Tunnel Name
setting specifies the tunnel that is used for outbound
connect requests when the explicit forward proxy feature is used. Specifying a tunnel enables
other virtual servers to receive connections initiated by the proxy service.This setting is available on the HTTP profile only when you set the proxy mode feature to
Explicit
.Host Names
The
Host Name
setting specifies the name of hosts that should not be
proxied when an explicit forward proxy is used.This setting is available on the HTTP profile only when you set the proxy mode
feature to
Explicit
.Default Connect Handling
The
Default Connect Handling
setting specifies the behavior of the
forward explicit proxy service when handling outbound requests. By default, this setting is
disabled.- Enabled (checked) indicates that outbound requests are delivered directly, regardless of the presence of listening virtual servers.
- Disabled (check box cleared) indicates that outbound requests are delivered only if another virtual server is listening on the tunnel for the requested outbound connection. With this setting, virtual servers are required, and the system processes the outbound traffic before it leaves the device.
This setting is available on the HTTP profile only when you set the proxy mode
feature to
Explicit
.Connection Failed Message
You can configure an http explicit forward proxy profile to specify the message that appears
when a connection failure occurs. You can include TCL expressions.
This setting is available on the HTTP profile only when you set the proxy mode
feature to
Explicit
.DNS Lookup Failed Message
You can configure an http explicit forward proxy profile to specify the message that appears
when a DNS lookup failure occurs. You can include TCL expressions.
This setting is available on the HTTP profile only when you set the proxy mode
feature to
Explicit
.Bad Request Message
You can configure an http explicit forward proxy profile to specify the message that appears when a bad request occurs. You can include TCL expressions.
This setting is available on the HTTP profile only when you set the proxy mode feature to
Explicit
.Bad Response Message
You can configure an http explicit forward proxy profile to specify the message that appears
when a bad response occurs. You can include TCL expressions.
This setting is available on the HTTP profile only when you set the proxy mode
feature to
Explicit
.sFlow settings
You can configure the HTTP profile to use sFlow technology to monitor traffic passing through the BIG-IP system.
Polling intervals
You can configure an HTTP profile to specify the maximum interval in seconds between two pollings. The default value is
Default
, which represents the value set on the System :: sFlow :: Global Settings :: http :: Properties screen. The initial default value is 10 seconds.Sampling rates
You can configure an HTTP profile to specify the ratio of packets observed to the samples generated. For example, a sampling rate of 2000 specifies that the system randomly generates 1 sample for every 2000 packets observed. The default value is
Default
, which represents the value set on the System :: sFlow :: Global Settings :: http :: Properties screen. The initial default value is 1024 packets.HSTS settings
An HTTP profile provides HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) settings that insert a
Strict-Transport-Security
header into HTTP responses. When enabled, HSTS
functionality requests that clients only use HTTPS connections (TLS or SSL) to the current host,
and optionally to any subdomains of the current host's domain name, for a specified period of
time.Mode
The Mode setting enables and disables HSTS functionality within the HTTP profile. The default
is cleared (disabled).
Maximum Age
The Maximum Age value specifies the length of time, in seconds, that HSTS functionality
requests that clients only use HTTPS to connect to the current host and any subdomains of the
current host's domain name. The default is
16070400
seconds (about six
months). A value of 0
re-enables plaintext HTTP access.Include Subdomains
The Include Subdomains setting applies the HSTS policy to the HSTS host and its subdomains. The
default is selected (enabled).
Preload
An HSTS
preload list
is a list of domains built into a web browser. When you enable
the Preload
setting, the domain for the web site that this HTTP profile
is associated with is submitted for inclusion in the browser's preload list. This forces the
client to send packets over SSL/TLS.About HTTP compression
profiles
HTTP compression reduces the amount of data to be transmitted, thereby
significantly reducing bandwidth usage. All of the tasks needed to configure HTTP compression on
the BIG-IP system, as well as the compression software
itself, are centralized on the BIG-IP system. The tasks needed to configure HTTP compression for
objects in an Application Acceleration Manager module policy node are available in the
Application Acceleration Manager, but an HTTP compression profile must be enabled for them to
function.
When configuring the BIG-IP system to compress data, you can:
- Configure the system to include or exclude certain types of data.
- Specify the levels of compression quality and speed that you want.
You can enable the HTTP compression option by setting the
URI Compression
or the Content Compression
setting of the HTTP Compression
profile to URI List
or Content List
, respectively. This causes the
BIG-IP system to compress HTTP content for any responses in which the values that you specify in
the URI List
or Content List
settings of an HTTP profile match
the values of the Request-URI
or
Content-Type
response headers. Exclusion is useful because some URI or file types might already be
compressed. Using CPU resources to compress already-compressed data is not recommended because
the cost of compressing the data usually outweighs the benefits. Examples of regular expressions
that you might want to specify for exclusion are
.*\.pdf
, .*\.gif
, or
.*\.html
.The string
that you specify in the
URI List
or the
Content List
setting can be either a
pattern string or a regular expression. List types are case-sensitive for pattern strings. For
example, the system treats the pattern string www.f5.com
differently from the pattern string www.F5.com
. You can override this
case-sensitivity by using the Linux regexp
command.HTTP Compression profile options
You can use an HTTP Compression profile alone, or with the BIG-IP
Application Acceleration Manager, to reduce the amount of data to be transmitted,
thereby significantly reducing bandwidth usage. The tasks needed to configure HTTP compression
for objects in an Application Acceleration Manager policy node are available in the Application Acceleration Manager,
but an HTTP Compression profile must be enabled for them to function.
URI compression
If you enable compression, you probably do not want the BIG-IP system
to compress every kind of server response. Therefore, you can instruct the BIG-IP system to include in compression, or exclude from compression, certain responses
that are specified in the URIs of client requests.
More specifically, you can type regular expressions to specify the types of server responses
that you want the BIG-IP system to include in, or exclude from, compression. For example, you can
specify that you want the system to compress all
.htm
responses by typing the
regular expression .*\.htm
. The system then compares that response type to
the URI specified within each client request, and if the system finds a match, takes some
action.The string that you specify can be either a pattern string or a regular
expression. Note that list types are case-sensitive for pattern strings. For example, the system
treats the pattern string
www.f5.com
differently from the pattern string
www.F5.com
. You can override this case-sensitivity by using the Linux
regexp
command.Content compression
If you enable compression, you probably do not want the BIG-IP system to
compress every kind of server response. Therefore, you can instruct the BIG-IP system to include
in compression, or exclude from compression, certain responses that match the
Content-Type
header in those responses.For example, you can specify that you want the system to compress responses that match
Content-Type header values such as:
- text/
- image/
- video/
- application/java.*
For the last example where the Content-Type value you specify in the profile is
application/java.*
, the BIG-IP system will include or exclude values such
as application/java-vm
,
application/java-serialized
,
application/javascript
, application/java-archive
,
and so on.The string that you specify can be either a pattern string or a regular
expression. Note that list types are case-sensitive for pattern strings. You can override this
case-sensitivity by using the Linux
regexp
command.Preferred compression methods
You can specify the compression method that you want the BIG-IP system
to use when compressing responses. The two possible compression methods are gzip and deflate.
Minimum content length for compression
When compression is enabled, you can specify the minimum length of a server response in
uncompressed bytes that the BIG-IP system requires for compressing that
response. The BIG-IP system finds the content length of a server
response in the
Content-Length
header of the server response. Thus, if the
content length specified in the response header is below the value that you assign for minimum
content length, LTM does not compress the response. The length in bytes applies to content length
only, not headers.For example, using the default value of
1024
, the BIG-IP system
compresses only those responses with HTTP content containing at least 1024 bytes.Sometimes the
Content-Length
header does not indicate the content length of
the response. In such cases, the system compresses the response, regardless of size.Compression buffer size
When compression is enabled, you can specify the maximum number of compressed bytes that the BIG-IP system buffers before deciding whether or not to preserve a
Keep-Alive
connection and rewrite the Content-Length
header.For example, using the default value of
4096
, the BIG-IP system buffers up to 4096 bytes of compressed data before deciding whether or
not to preserve the connection and rewrite the Content-Length
header.The BIG-IP system decision to rewrite the
Content-Length
header
depends on whether response chunking is enabled (using the Response Chunking
profile
setting).About the Vary header
When compression is enabled, the
Vary Header
setting inserts the
Vary: Accept-Encoding
header into a compressed server response. If the
Vary
header already exists in the response, Local Traffic Manager appends the value Accept-Encoding
to that header.The reason for inserting the
Vary: Accept-Encoding
header into a server
response is to follow a recommendation by RFC2616, which states that the Vary
header should be inserted into any cacheable response that is subject to server-driven
negotiation. Server responses that are subject to HTTP compression fall into this category.If the
Vary Header
setting is disabled, the BIG-IP system does not
insert the Vary
header into a server response.To disable the
Vary
header, locate the Vary Header
setting and clear the Enabled
box.Compression for HTTP/1.0 requests
The
HTTP/1.0 Requests
setting is included for backward compatibility,
allowing HTTP compression for responses to HTTP/1.0 client requests. The default value for this
setting is Disabled.If this setting is set to Enabled, the BIG-IP system only compresses
responses in either of the following cases:
- When the server responds with aConnection: closeheader
- When the response content is no greater than the value of theCompression Buffer Sizesetting
To enable compression for HTTP/1.0 requests, locate the
HTTP/1.0
Requests
setting and select the check box.About the Accept-Encoding header
Normally, when you enable HTTP compression, the BIG-IP system strips out
the
Accept-Encoding
header from the HTTP request. This causes the BIG-IP system,
instead of the target server, to perform the HTTP compression.By default, the
Keep Accept Encoding
setting is disabled. If you want to
allow the target server instead of the BIG-IP system to perform the HTTP compression, simply
enable this setting.Browser workarounds
When you enable the
Browser Workarounds
setting, the system uses
built-in workarounds for several common browser issues that occur when compressing content.
The default setting is disabled (cleared). More specifically, enabling this setting prevents
the system from compressing server responses when any of these conditions exists:- The client browser is Netscape version 4.0x.
- The client browser is Netscape version 4.x (that is, versions 4.10 and higher), and theContent-Typeheader of the server response is not set totext/htmlortext/plain.
- The client browser is Microsoft Internet Explorer (any version), theContent-Typeheader of the server response is set to eithertext/cssorapplication/x-javascript, and the client connection uses SSL.
- The client browser is Microsoft Internet Explorer (any version), theContent-Typeheader of the server response is set to eithertext/cssorapplication/x-javascript, and theCache-Controlheader of the server response is set tono-cache.
About Web Acceleration profiles
When used by the BIG-IP system without other provisioned
modules, the Web Acceleration profile uses basic default acceleration.
Web Acceleration profile settings
This table describes the Web Acceleration profile configuration settings and default
values.
Setting | Value | Description |
---|---|---|
Name | No default | Specifies the name of the profile. |
Parent Profile | Selected predefined or user-defined profile | Specifies the selected predefined or user-defined profile. |
Partition / Path | Common | Specifies the partition and path to the folder for the profile objects. |
Cache Size | 100 | This setting specifies the maximum size in megabytes (MB) reserved for
the cache. When the cache reaches the maximum size, the system starts removing the
oldest entries. Without a provisioned BIG-IP
Application Acceleration Manager, this setting specifies the maximum size in
megabytes (MB) reserved for the cache. When the cache reaches the maximum size, the
system starts removing the oldest entries. With a provisioned Application Acceleration Manager, this setting defines the
minimum reserved cache size. The maximum size of the minimum reserved cache is 64 GB
(with provisioned cache availability). An allocation of 15 GB is practical for most
implementations. The total available cache includes the minimum reserved cache and a
dynamic cache, used as necessary when the minimum reserved cache is exceeded, for a
total cache availability of 256 GB. |
Maximum Entries | 10000 | Specifies the maximum number of entries that can be in the cache. |
Maximum Age | 3600 | Specifies how long in seconds that the system considers the cached content to be
valid. |
Minimum Object Size | 500 | Specifies the smallest object in bytes that the system considers eligible for
caching. |
Maximum Object Size | 50000 | Specifies the largest object in bytes that the system considers eligible for
caching. |
URI Caching | Not Configured | Specifies whether the system retains or excludes certain Uniform Resource
Identifiers (URIs) in the cache. The process forces the system either to cache URIs that
typically are ineligible for caching, or to not cache URIs that typically are eligible for
caching. |
URI List | No default value | Specifies the URIs that the system either includes in or excludes from caching.
You can use regular expressions to specify URIs in accordance with
BIG-IP supported meta characters. |
Ignore Headers | All | Specifies how the system processes client-side
Cache-Control headers when caching is enabled.
|
Insert Age Header | Enabled | Specifies, when enabled, that the system inserts Date and
Age headers in the cached entry. The Date
header contains the current date and time on the BIG-IP system. The
Age header contains the length of time that the content has been
in the cache. |
Aging Rate | 9 | Specifies how quickly the system ages a cache entry. The aging rate ranges from 0
(slowest aging) to 10 (fastest aging). |
AM Applications | No default | Lists enabled Application Acceleration Manager applications in the
Enabled field and available applications in the
Available field. |
Web Acceleration Profile statistics description
This topic provides a description of Web Acceleration Profile statistics produced in tmsh.
Viewing Web Acceleration profile statistics
Statistics for the Web Acceleration Profile can be viewed in tmsh by using the following command.
tmsh show /ltm profile web-acceleration <profile_name>
Each statistic is described in the following tables.
Statistic | Description |
---|---|
Virtual Server | The name of the associated virtual server. |
Statistic | Description |
---|---|
Cache Size (in Bytes) | |
Total Cached Items | |
Total Evicted Items | |
Inter-Stripe Size (in Bytes) | |
Inter-Stripe Cached Items | |
Inter-Stripe Evicted Items | |
Statistic | Description |
---|---|
Hits | The total number of cache hits. |
Misses (Cacheable) | The number of cache misses for objects that can otherwise be cached. |
Misses (Total) | The number of cache misses for all objects. |
Inter-Stripe Hits | The number of inter-stripe cache hits for each TMM. |
Inter-Stripe Misses | The number of inter-stripe cache misses for each TMM. |
Remote Hits | |
Remote Misses | The number of cache misses for owner TMMs. |
About FTP
profiles
The BIG-IP system includes a
profile type that you can use to manage File Transfer Protocol (FTP) traffic. You can tailor FTP
profile settings to your specific needs. For those settings that have default values, you can
retain those default settings or modify them. You can modify any settings either when you create
the profile, or at any time after you have created it.
The Translate
Extended value
Because IP version 6 addresses are not limited to 32 bits (unlike IP
version 4 addresses), compatibility issues can arise when using FTP in mixed IP-version
configurations.
By default,the BIG-IP system automatically translates FTP commands when a
client-server configuration contains both IP version 4 (IPv4) and IP version 6 (IPv6) systems.
For example, if a client system running IPv4 sends the FTP
PASV
command to a server running IPv6, the BIG-IP
system automatically translates the PASV
command to the equivalent FTP command for IPv6 systems, EPSV
.The BIG-IP system translates the FTP commands
EPRV
and PORT
in the same way.Inherit Parent
Profile
When you configure the BIG-IP
system to process FTP traffic, the FTP virtual server fully proxies the control channel,
allowing you to use the optimization settings of the client-side and server-side TCP profiles
assigned to the virtual server.
However, the profile settings of the FTP control channel are not passed
down to the FTP data channel by default. Instead, the FTP data channel uses a Fast L4 flow,
which is fully accelerated by Packet Velocity ASIC to maximize performance (on applicable
hardware platforms). A data channel using Fast L4 cannot use the same full-proxy TCP
optimizations that exist for the control channel.
To take advantage of these optimizations for the FTP data channel, you can
enable the Inherit Parent Profile setting of the FTP profile. Enabling this setting disables
Fast L4 for the FTP data channel, and instead allows the data channel to use the same TCP
profile settings that the control channel uses.
Data Port
The Data Port setting allows the FTP service to run on an alternate port.
The default data port is 20.
Security for FTP
traffic
When the BIG-IP system includes a license for the BIG-IP
Application Security Manager, you can enable a security
scan for FTP traffic.
About DNS
profiles
You can create a custom DNS profile to enable various features such as
converting IPv6-formatted addresses to IPv4 format, enabling DNS Express, and enabling DNSSEC.
About RTSP profiles
The BIG-IP system® includes a profile type that you can use to manage
Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) traffic.
Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP)
is
a protocol used for streaming-media presentations. Using RTSP, a client system can control a
remote streaming-media server and allow time-based access to files on a server.The RTSP profile in the BIG-IP system supports these features:
- The setup of streaming media over UDP. In this case, the control connection opens the required ports to allow data to flow through the BIG-IP system.
- Interleaved data over the control connection, essentially streaming media over TCP.
- Real Networks tunneling of RTSP over HTTP, through the RTSP port (554).
A common configuration for the RTSP profile is one that includes RTSP clients and media servers, as well as RTSP proxies to manage accounting and authentication tasks. In this proxied configuration, you most likely want the streaming media from the servers to pass directly to the client, bypassing the RTSP proxy servers.
To implement this configuration, you configure the BIG-IP system by creating two virtual servers, one for processing traffic to and from the external network, and one for processing traffic to and from the internal network. For each virtual server, you assign a separate RTSP profile.
With this configuration:
- The RTSP profile on the external virtual server passes client IP address information to the RTSP profile on the internal virtual server.
- The RTSP profile on the internal virtual server extracts the client IP address information from the request, processes the media server’s response, and opens the specified ports on the BIG-IP system. Opening these ports allows the streaming media to bypass the RTSP proxy servers as the data travels from the server to the client.
The client IP address information is stored in the Proxy Header setting that you specify in the
RTSP profile.
About ICAP
profiles
You can configure one or more Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP)
profiles when you want to use the BIG-IP content
adaptation feature for adapting HTTP requests and responses. This feature allows a BIG-IP virtual
server to conditionally forward HTTP requests and HTTP responses to a pool of ICAP servers for
modification, before sending a request to a web server or returning a response to the client
system.
In a typical configuration, you create two ICAP profiles:
- You assign one of the profiles to a virtual server of type Internal that sends HTTP requests to a pool of ICAP servers.
- You assign the other profile to a virtual server of type Internal that sends HTTP responses to a pool of ICAP servers.
For more information on content adaptation for HTTP traffic, see the guide
titled
BIG-IP Local Traffic
Manager: Implementations
, available on the AskF5
knowledge base at http://support.f5.com
.About Request Adapt and Response Adapt profiles
You can configure a Request Adapt or Response Adapt profile when you want to use the BIG-IP content adaptation feature for adapting HTTP requests and responses. A
Request Adapt or Response Adapt profile instructs an HTTP virtual server to send a request or
response to a named virtual server of type Internal, for possible modification by an Internet
Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP) server.
For more information on content adaptation for HTTP traffic, see the guide titled
BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager: Implementations
, available on the AskF5™ knowledge base at http://support.f5.com
.About RADIUS profiles
The BIG-IP system includes a profile type that you can use to load
balance Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) traffic.
When you configure a RADIUS type of profile, the BIG-IP system can send client-initiated RADIUS messages to load balancing servers. The BIG-IP system can also ensure that those messages are persisted on the servers.
About SMTP profiles
You can create an SMTP profile to secure SMTP traffic coming into the BIG-IP system. When you create an SMTP profile, BIG-IP Protocol Security Manager™ provides several security checks for requests sent to a protected SMTP server:
- Verifies SMTP protocol compliance as defined in RFC 2821.
- Validates incoming mail using several criteria.
- Inspects email and attachments for viruses.
- Applies rate limits to the number of messages.
- Validates DNS SPF records.
- Prevents directory harvesting attacks.
- Disallows or allows some of the SMTP methods, such as VRFY, EXPN, and ETRN, that spam senders typically use to attack mail servers.
- Rejects the first message from a sender, because legitimate senders retry sending the message, and spam senders typically do not. This process is known asgreylisting. The system does not reject subsequent messages from the same sender to the same recipient.
With an SMTP profile configured, the system either generates an alarm for, or blocks, any requests that trigger the security check.
The SMTP profile is only available for BIG-IP systems that are licensed for BIG-IP
Protocol Security Manager™.
About SMTPS profiles
The SMTPS profile provides a way to add SSL encryption to SMTP traffic quickly and easily.
SMTPS
is a method for securing Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) connections at
the transport layer.Normally, SMTP traffic between SMTP servers and clients is unencrypted. This creates a privacy
issue because SMTP traffic often passes through routers that the servers and clients do not
trust, resulting in a third party potentially changing the communications between the server and
client. Also, two SMTP systems do not normally authenticate each other. A more secure SMTP server might
only allow communications from other known SMTP systems, or the server might act differently with
unknown systems.
To mitigate these problems, the BIG-IP system includes an SMTPS profile that you can configure.
When you configure an SMTPS profile, you can activate support for the industry-standard STARTTLS
extension to the SMTP protocol, by instructing the BIG-IP system to either allow, disallow, or
require STARTTLS activation for SMTP traffic. The STARTTLS extension effectively upgrades a
plain-text connection to an encrypted connection on the same port, instead of using a separate
port for encrypted communication.
This illustration shows a basic configuration of a BIG-IP system that uses SMTPS to secure SMTP traffic between the BIG-IP system and an SMTP mail server.
About Client LDAP
and Server LDAP profiles
You can implement STARTTLS encryption for Lightweight Directory Access
Protocol (LDAP) traffic passing through the BIG-IP system.
LDAP
is an industry standard
application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information
services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. You configure the BIG-IP system for
STARTTLS encryption by activating the STARTTLS communication protocol for any client or
server traffic that allows or requires STARTTLS encryption.Normally, LDAP traffic between LDAP servers and clients is unencrypted.
This creates a privacy issue because LDAP traffic often passes through routers that the
servers and clients do not trust, resulting in a third party potentially changing the
communications between the server and client. Also, two LDAP systems do not normally
authenticate each other. A more secure LDAP server might only allow communications from
other known LDAP systems, or the server might act differently with unknown systems.
To mitigate these problems, the BIG-IP system includes two LDAP profiles
that you can configure. When you configure a Client LDAP or Server LDAP profile, you can
instruct the BIG-IP system to activate the STARTTLS communication protocol for any client
or server traffic that allows or requires STARTTLS encryption. The
STARTTLS
protocol effectively upgrades a plain-text
connection to an encrypted connection on the same port (port 389), instead of using a
separate port for encrypted communication.This illustration shows a basic configuration of a BIG-IP system that
activates STARTTLS to secure LDAP traffic between a client system and the BIG-IP system,
and between the BIG-IP system and an LDAP authentication server.
About iSession
profiles
The iSession profile tells the
system how to optimize traffic. Symmetric optimization requires an iSession profile at both ends
of the iSession connection. The system-supplied parent iSession profile
isession
, is appropriate for all application
traffic, and other iSession profiles have been pre-configured for specific applications. The name
of each pre-configured iSession profile indicates the application for which it was configured,
such as isession-cifs
.When you configure the iSession local endpoint on the Quick Start screen,
the system automatically associates the system-supplied iSession profile
isession
with the iSession listener isession-virtual
it creates for inbound
traffic.You must associate an iSession profile with any virtual server you create
for a custom optimized application for outbound traffic, and with any iSession listener you
create for inbound traffic.
Screen capture showing compression settings
The following screen capture shows the pertinent compression settings.
If adaptive compression is disabled, you must manually select a compression
codec for iSession™ traffic. If you leave the other codecs enabled, the BIG-IP system selects the bzip2 compression algorithm by default, and that
might not be the algorithm you want.
About Rewrite profiles
For environments that use web servers, you might want your websites to appear differently on
the external network than on the internal network. For example, you might want the BIG-IP system to send traffic destined for
www.company.com/usa/
to the internal server
usa.company.com
instead. Normally, this translation could cause some
issues, such as the web server expecting to see a certain host name (such as for name-based
virtual hosting) or the web server using the internal host name when sending a redirect to client
systems.You can solve these problems by configuring a
Rewrite profile
, which causes the
BIG-IP system to act as a reverse proxy server. As a reverse proxy server
, the
BIG-IP system offloads the URI translation function from web servers enabled with features such
as Apache's ProxyPass module. With a Rewrite profile, the BIG-IP system can perform URI scheme,
host, port, and path modifications as HTTP traffic passes through the system. The feature also
provides reverse translation for the Location
,
Content-Location
, and URI headers in the server response to the client.The BIG-IP reverse proxy feature replaces the ProxyPass iRule available on
the F5 Networks site
http://devcentral.f5.com
.A typical use of a reverse proxy server is to grant Internet users access to application
servers that are behind a firewall and therefore have private IP addresses and unregistered DNS
entries.
About URI translation
You can configure the BIG-IP system to perform URI translation on HTTP
requests. Suppose that a company named
Siterequest
has a website
www.siterequest.com
, which has a public IP address and a registered DNS
entry, and therefore can be accessed from anywhere on the Internet.Furthermore, suppose that
Siterequest
has two application
servers with private IP addresses and unregistered DNS entries, inside the company's firewall.
The application servers are visible within the internal network as
appserver1.siterequest.com
and
appserver2.siterequest.com
.Because these servers have no public DNS
entries, any client system that tries to access one of these servers from outside the company
network receives a
no such host
error.As the illustration
shows, you can prevent this problem by configuring the BIG-IP system to act as a reverse proxy
server:
In the example, the company
Siterequest
has decided to enable Web access
to the internal application servers, without exposing them to the Internet directly. Instead, the
company has integrated the servers with the web server siterequest.com
so
that http://www.siterequest.com/sales
is mapped internally to
http://appserver1.siterequest.com/sales
, and
http://siterequest.com/marketing
is mapped internally to
http://appserver2.example.com/marketing
. This is a typical reverse-proxy
configuration.To configure the BIG-IP system to perform this translation, you create a Rewrite profile and
configure one or more URI rules. A
URI rule
specifies the particular URI
translation that you want the BIG-IP system to perform. Specifically, a URI rule translates the
scheme, host, port, or path of any client URI, server URI, or both. A URI rule also translates
any domain and path information in the Set-Cookie
header of the response when
that header information matches the information in the URI rule.The Rewrite profile supports HTML and CSS content types only. To specify MIME
types for HTML content, you can either create an HTML profile or accept the default values that
the Rewrite profile uses,
text/html
and text/xhtml
.
For CSS content, only the text/css
MIME type is supported.Rules for matching requests to URI rules
The BIG-IP system follows these rules when attempting to match a request
to a URI rule:
- A request does not need to match any entry. That is, if no entries match and there is no catch-all entry, then the Rewrite profile has no effect.
- Each request matches one entry only, which is the entry with the most specific host and path.
- If multiple entries match, then the BIG-IP system uses the entry with the deepest path name on the left side of the specified mapping.
- The BIG-IP system matches those requests that contain host names in URIs before matching requests that do not contain host names in URIs.
- The BIG-IP system processes the specified entries in the mapping from most-specific to least-specific, regardless of the order specified in the actual Rewrite profile.
About URI Rules
When creating a URI rule, you must specify the client and server URIs in
these ways:
- When the URI is a path prefix only, the path must be preceded by and followed by a/, for example,/sales/.
- When the URI contains more than the path prefix (such as, a host), the URI must also contain a scheme and must be followed by a/, for example,http://www.siterequest/sales/.
- Scheme and host are matched with a case-insensitive compare. Path components are matched with a case-sensitive compare per RFC 7230.
About Set-Cookie header translation
A URI rule automatically performs translation on any domain and path information in the
Set-Cookie
header of a response when that header information matches the
information in the URI rule.When the
Set-Cookie
header information that you want the BIG-IP system to translate does not match the information in an existing URI rule, you can
create a separate Set-Cookie rule
to perform this translation. You need to create a
Set-Cookie
rule only when the header information does not match the information
specified in an existing URI rule.The specific parts of the
Set-Cookie
header that you can specify for
translation are:- Client domain
- Client path
- Server domain
- Server path
You can specify that the BIG-IP system translate all of this information or a subset of this
information, depending on your needs.
About XML profiles
You can use the BIG-IP system to perform XML content-based routing
whereby the system routes requests to an appropriate pool, pool member, or virtual server based
on specific content in an XML document. For example, if your company transfers information in XML
format, you could use this feature to examine the XML content with the intent to route the
information to the appropriate department.
You can configure content-based routing by creating an XML profile and associating it with a
virtual server. In the XML profile, define the matching content to look for in the XML document.
Next, specify how to route the traffic to a pool by writing simple iRules®.
When the system discovers a match, it triggers an iRule event, and then you can configure the
system to route traffic to a virtual server, a pool, or a node.
The following example shows a simple XML document that the system could use to perform
content-based routing. It includes an element called FinanceObject used in this
implementation.
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:eai="http://192.168.149.250/eai_enu/" xmlns:soapenc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"> <soapenv:Header/> <soapenv:Body> <eai:SiebelEmployeeDelete soapenv:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"> <FinanceObject xsi:type="xsd:string">Route to Financing</FinanceObject> <SiebelMessage xsi:type="ns:ListOfEmployeeInterfaceTopElmt" xmlns:ns="http://www.siebel.com/xml"> <ListOfEmployeeInterface xsi:type="ns:ListOfEmployeeInterface"> <SecretKey>123456789</SecretKey> <Employee>John</Employee> <Title>CEO</Title> </ListOfEmployeeInterface> </SiebelMessage> </eai:SiebelEmployeeDelete> </soapenv:Body> </soapenv:Envelope>
About HTTP/2
profiles
The BIG-IP system includes an HTTP/2 profile type that you can
use to manage client- and server-side HTTP/2 traffic, improving the efficiency of network
resources while reducing the perceived latency of requests and responses. The LTM HTTP/2 profile
enables you to achieve these advantages by multiplexing streams and compressing headers with
Transport Layer Security (TLS) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) security.
The HTTP/2 protocol uses a binary framing layer that defines a frame type
and purpose in managing requests and responses. The binary framing layer determines how HTTP
messages are encapsulated and transferred between the client and server, a significant benefit of
HTTP 2.0 when compared to earlier versions.
All HTTP/2 communication occurs by means of a connection with bidirectional
streams. Each stream includes messages, consisting of one or more frames, that can be interleaved
and reassembled using the embedded stream identifier within each frame's header. The HTTP/2
profile enables you to specify a maximum frame size and write size, which controls the total size
of combined data frames, to improve network utilization.
Multiplexing
streams
You can use the HTTP/2 profile to multiplex streams
(interleaving and reassembling the streams), by specifying a maximum number of concurrent
streams permitted for a single
connection.
Additionally, you can specify the way that the HTTP/2 profile controls the
flow of streams. The
Receive Window
setting allows HTTP/2 to stall individual upload streams, as needed. For example, if the BIG-IP
system is unable to process a slow stream on a connection, but is able to process other streams
on the connection, it can use the Receive
Window
setting to specify a frame size for the slow stream, thus delaying that
upload stream until the size is met and the receiver is able to process it, while concurrently
proceeding to process frames for another stream.
Compressing headers
When you configure the HTTP/2 profile's
Header Table Size
setting, you can compress HTTP
headers to conserve bandwidth. Compressing HTTP headers reduces the object size, which reduces
required bandwidth. For example, you can specify a larger table value for better compression,
but at the expense of using more memory. HTTP/2 profile settings
This table provides descriptions of the HTTP/2 profile settings.
Setting | Default | Description |
---|---|---|
Name | Specifies the name of the HTTP/2 profile. | |
Parent Profile | http2 | Specifies the profile that you want to use as the parent profile. Your new profile
inherits all settings and values from the parent profile specified. |
Concurrent Streams Per Connection | 10 | Specifies the number of concurrent requests allowed to be outstanding on a single
HTTP/2 connection. |
Connection Idle Timeout | 300 | Specifies the number of seconds an HTTP/2 connection is left open idly before it
is closed. |
Insert Header | Disabled | Specifies whether an HTTP header that indicates the use of HTTP/2 is inserted into
the request sent to the origin web server. |
Insert Header Name | X-HTTP/2 | Specifies the name of the HTTP header controlled by the Insert Header
Name setting. |
Enforce TLS Requirements | Enabled Disabled | Specifies whether the system
requires TLS for communications between specified senders and recipients. |
Activation Modes | Select Modes | Specifies how a connection is established as a HTTP/2 connection. |
Selected Modes | ALPN NPN | Used only with an Activation Modes selection of
Select Modes , specifies the extension used in the HTTP/2 profile.
The order of the extensions in the Selected Modes Enabled list ranges from most preferred (first) to least preferred
(last). Clients typically use the first supported extension. At least one HTTP/2 mode must
be included in the Enabled list. The values
ALPN and NPN specify that the TLS
Application Layer Protocol Negotiation (ALPN) and Next Protocol Negotiation (NPN) will be
used. Clients that use TLS, but only support HTTP will work as if HTTP/2 is not present.
The value Always specifies that all connections function as HTTP/2
connections. Selecting Always in the Activation
Mode list is primarily intended for troubleshooting. |
Receive Window | 32 | Specifies the receive window , which is HTTP/2 protocol functionality
that controls flow, in KB. The receive window allows the HTTP/2 protocol to stall
individual upload streams when needed. |
Frame Size | 2048 | Specifies the size of the data frames, in bytes, that the HTTP/2 protocol sends to
the client. Larger frame sizes improve network utilization, but can affect concurrency.
|
Write Size | 16384 | Specifies the total size of combined data frames, in bytes, that the HTTP/2
protocol sends in a single write function. This setting controls the size of the TLS
records when the HTTP/2 protocol is used over Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). A large write
size causes the HTTP/2 protocol to buffer more data and improves network utilization.
|
Header Table Size | 4096 | Specifies the size of the header table, in KB. The HTTP/2 protocol compresses HTTP
headers to save bandwidth. A larger table size allows better compression, but requires
more memory. |
SOCKS profiles
You can use the BIG-IP system SOCKS profile to configure the BIG-IP
system to handle proxy requests and function as a gateway. By configuring browser traffic to use
the proxy, you can control whether to allow or deny a requested connection. To implement the
profile, you must associate it with a virtual server.
SOCKS profile settings
- Protocol Versions
- You can specify one or more versions of SOCKS.
- Socks4indicates protocol support for SOCKS version 4.
- Socks4Aindicates protocol support for SOCKS 4A, which adds host name support to version 4.
- Socks5specifies protocol support for SOCKS version 5, which includes host name and IPv6 support.
- DNS Resolver
- You must specify a DNS resolver to use for DNS inquiries handled by the virtual servers associated with this profile. If no DNS resolver exists on the system, you can create one at.
- IPv6
- TheIPv6setting specifies the relative order of IPv4 and IPv6 DNS resolutions for URIs. The default is disabled, causing the BIG-IP system to attempt an IPv4 lookup before an IPv6 lookup.
- Route Domain
- You can specify a route domain to be used for outbound connect requests.
- Tunnel Name
- You must specify a tunnel that is used for outbound connect requests, enabling other virtual servers to receive connections initiated by the proxy service. A pre-configured tunnelsocks-tunnelis available.
- Default Connect Handling
- You can specify the behavior of the proxy service when handling outbound requests.
- Enabled (checked) indicates that the proxy service delivers outbound requests directly, regardless of the presence of listening servers.
- Disabled (check box cleared) indicates that the proxy service delivers outbound requests only if another virtual server is listening on the tunnel for the requested outbound connection. With this setting, virtual servers are required, and the system processes the outbound traffic before it leaves the device.
About FIX
profiles
The BIG-IP system FIX profile
provides you with the ability to use Financial Information eXchange (FIX) protocol messages in
routing, load balancing, persisting, and logging connections. The BIG-IP system uses the FIX
profile to examine the header, body, and footer of each FIX message, and then process each
message according to the parameters that it contains.
The BIG-IP system supports FIX protocol versions 4.2, 4.4, and 5.0, and uses
the key-value pair FIX message format.
You
cannot configure or use the BIG-IP FIX Profile to provide low-latency electronic trading
functionality. Instead, you must implement low-latency electronic trading functionality
separately.
About FIX profile tag
substitution
The BIG-IP system's FIX profile
provides options for how the FIX messages should be parsed. Once configured, the BIG-IP system
compares the FIX profile's Mapping List Sender value (
SenderCompID
) with the value received in the
client message. If the values match, then the BIG-IP system provides tag substitution as defined
by the data group definition in the corresponding mapping list.Example
Two or more clients can define a FIX tag differently. On the BIG-IP server
side, you can define a dictionary for each client that maps a client tag to a server tag. For
example, a server might use
20001
for
an analyst's average price target, and 20002
as a client twitter feed name. Then, in the dictionary for the first client,
the tag 10001
is mapped to 20001
, and, for the second client, the tag
30001
is mapped to 20001
. About steering traffic using the FIX profile
The BIG-IP system's FIX profile can direct, or steer, FIX messages to a
destination pool in accordance with the FIX login message that it receives, and the configured
iRules®. Once a pool member is selected, which is only required one time
for a connection, all messages in the same FIX session are forwarded, or persisted, to that pool
member.
About validating FIX messages
The BIG-IP system validates each Financial Information eXchange (FIX)
protocol message, allowing and denying transmission accordingly. If a FIX message is valid,
the BIG-IP system allows transmission, triggers the
FIX_MESSAGE
iRule
event, and optionally logs the message. If a FIX message is invalid, the BIG-IP system logs
the error, and either disallows transmission or drops the connection, as configured by the
profile. The BIG-IP system provides two types of parsing validation: full parsing validation and
quick parsing validation.
Full Parsing Validation
When
full parsing validation
is applied, all fields are validated.Quick Parsing Validation
When
quick parsing validation
is applied, the following fields are
validated.- The first three fields: 8 (BeginString), 9 (BodyLength), and 35 (MsgType).
- The last field.
- Field 49 (SenderCompID).
- Fields requested by an iRule tag query command.
- Fields in the message that precede the fields requested by an iRule tag query command.
For example, consider the following message:
8=FIX.4.2|9=100|35-A|600=X|700=Y|800=Z...
. In this example, the
first three fields are always parsed: 8
, 9
,
and 35
. If the iRule command FIX::tag 700
runs, then the fields preceding 700
in the example are parsed,
specifically 600
(in addition to the first three fields).The following table describes the different types of quick parsing validation that the BIG-IP
system provides.
FIX Message | Description | Quick Parsing Validation | Example |
---|---|---|---|
Message sequence no <num> from <senderCompID> error: There
is no = in the field starting at byte <byte offset of the
field> | Field is not in the format of tag=val . | This error is partially checked when using quick parsing validation. | 35=A;123xyz; . The second field is missing an =
sign. |
Message sequence no <num> from <senderCompID> error: the
field starting at byte <byte offset of the field> has invalid
tag | The tag is not an integer. | This error is partially checked when using quick parsing validation. | 35=A;abc=xyz; . The tag abc in the
second field is not an integer. |
Message sequence no <num> from <senderCompID> error: there
is no value found in the field starting at byte <byte offset of the
field> | A value is missing. | This error is partially checked when using quick parsing validation. | 35=A;50=; . The second field is missing a value. |
The first (second, third) tag should be 8 (9, 35), but get <wrong
value> from < senderCompID> | The first three tags are not 8 , 9 ,
and 35 . | This error is fully checked when using quick parsing validation. | None. |
Length mismatch: message sequence no <num> from
<senderCompID> should be tag10 after <length> bytes, but encounter
<val1 val2> | The length is mismatched. | This error is fully checked when using quick parsing validation. | None. |
Checksum mismatch: message sequence <num> from
<senderCompID> declares checksum as <claimed value>, but calculated
checksum from received data is <real value> | The checksum is mismatched. | This error is fully checked when using quick parsing validation. | None. |
Message from <IP address> is longer than
allowed | The message length is greater than 4MB. | This error is fully checked when using quick parsing validation. | None. |
About using SSL encryption for FIX messages
You can configure a virtual server to use client and server SSL encryption with FIX protocol
messages, as necessary, for transactions across the Internet, or for compliance purposes.
About logging FIX
messages
The BIG-IP system provides
optional logging of each FIX message for auditing purposes. You can log events either locally on
the BIG-IP system or remotely, using the BIG-IP system’s high-speed logging mechanism. The
recommended way to store logs is on a pool of remote logging servers.
For local logging, the high-speed logging mechanism stores the logs in
either the Syslog or the MySQL database on the BIG-IP system, depending on a destination that you
define. For remote logging, the high-speed logging mechanism sends log messages to a pool of
logging servers that you define.
Report Log
Publisher
The report log publisher setting enables you to log any error messages for
FIX traffic, either locally, by using the default
local-db-publisher
, or remotely, by using high-speed logging.Message Log
Publisher
The message log publisher setting enables you to log all FIX messages,
either locally, by using the default
local-db-publisher
, or remotely, by using high-speed logging.About FIX profile
statistics
The BIG-IP system's FIX profile
provides statistics that enable you to evaluate and analyze the characteristics of FIX traffic.
In addition to virtual server statistics, the following table describes statistics that are
specific to the FIX profile.
Statistic | Description |
---|---|
Current
connections | Specifies the current number of FIX connections. |
Number
messages | Specifies the total number of FIX messages. |
Total message
size | Specifies the total size for all FIX messages. |
Number messages
last interval | Specifies the number of FIX messages sent during the last
interval. |
You can view statistics for the FIX profile by using tmsh, for example, by
typing
tmsh show ltm profile fix
<fix_profile_name>
to view a summary of FIX traffic statistics, or tmsh show sys fix-connection
to view FIX traffic
statistics for each client.About GTP
profiles
You can create a GPRS Tunneling Protocol (GTP) profile type on the BIG-IP system to manage Global System for Mobile
Communication (GSM), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), and latterly Long-Term
Evolution (LTE) subscriber traffic across User Datagram Protocol (UDP) connections. The BIG-IP
system supports GTP versions 1 and 2 on UDP connections. When configuring the GTP profile, you
can specify the maximum number of messages held in the GTP ingress queue.
About the IPSecALG profile
The
IPSecALG profile
provides network address translation and flow management for
Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) and Internet Key Exchange (IKE) flows. This profile enables you to specify an idle timeout value, where a connection is idle for the
specified period before becoming eligible for deletion. You can also limit the number of pending
Internet Key Exchange (IKE) connections, a maximum number of unacknowledged connections that a
client can have, before being denied further requests, to prevent a single client from flooding
all of the connections while establishing the connections. Additionally, you can apply an initial
connection timeout value, which determines the maximum number of seconds to wait for a response
from the server for an IKE or IPsec request.
Finally, you can configure a log publisher and logging profile for IPsec ALG functionality, as
necessary, through the IPsecALG profile.
Video Quality of Experience profiles
The BIG-IP system's video Quality of Experience (QoE) profile enables you
to assess an audience's video session or overall video experience, providing an indication of
customer satisfaction. The QoE profile uses static information, such as bitrate and duration of a
video, and video metadata, such as URL and content type, in monitoring video streaming.
Additionally, the QoE profile monitors dynamic information, such as the variable video
downloading rate. By measuring the video playing rate and downloading rate, the user experience
can be assessed and defined in terms of a single mean opinion score (MOS) of the video session,
and a level of customer satisfaction can be derived. QoE scores are logged in the
ltm
log file, located in /var/log
, which you can
evaluate as necessary. About the video Quality of Experience profile
The BIG-IP system's video Quality of Experience (QoE) profile enables you
to assess an audience's video session or overall video experience, providing an indication of
customer satisfaction. The QoE profile uses static information, such as bitrate and duration of a
video, and video metadata, such as URL and content type, in monitoring video streaming.
Additionally, the QoE profile monitors dynamic information, which reflects the real-time network
condition.
By considering both the static video parameters and the dynamic network information, the user
experience can be assessed and defined in terms of a single mean opinion score (MOS) of the video
session, and a level of customer satisfaction can be derived. QoE scores are logged in the
ltm
log file, located in /var/log
, which you can
evaluate as necessary. Note that for QoE to properly process video files, the video web servers must be compliant with
supported video MIME types, for example, the following MIME types.
MIME Type | Suffix |
---|---|
video/mp4 | .f4v |
video/mp4 | .mp4 |
video/x-flv | .flv |
video/x-m4v | .m4v |
video/quicktime | .m4v |
application/x-mpegURL | .m3u8 |
video/mp2t | .ts |
About mean opinion
score
The video Quality of Experience (QoE) profile provides a mean opinion score
(MOS), derived from static and dynamic parameters associated with a video stream. The following
table summarizes the resultant values.
MOS | Quality | Description |
---|---|---|
5 | Excellent | Indicates a superior level of quality, with imperceptible
degradation in the video stream. |
4 | Good | Indicates an above-average level of quality, with perceptible
degradation that is acceptable. |
3 | Fair | Indicates an average level of quality, with perceptible
degradation that detracts from the video experience. |
2 | Poor | Indicates a below-average level of quality, with perceptible
degradation that significantly detracts from the video experience. |
1 | Bad | Indicates a substandard level of quality, with perceptible
degradation that proves to be significantly inferior and potentially unacceptable. |