Manual Chapter : Configuring HTTP Load Balancing with Source Address Affinity Persistence

Applies To:

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BIG-IP LTM

  • 12.1.6, 12.1.5, 12.1.4, 12.1.3, 12.1.2, 12.1.1, 12.1.0
Manual Chapter

Configuring HTTP Load Balancing with Source Address Affinity Persistence

Overview: HTTP load balancing with source affinity persistence

Many computing environments want to use a BIG-IP® system to intelligently manage their HTTP traffic. You can easily control your HTTP traffic by implementing a BIG-IP system feature known as an HTTP profile. An HTTP profile is a group of settings that affect the behavior of HTTP traffic. An HTTP profile defines the way that you want the BIG-IP system to manage HTTP traffic.

You can use the default HTTP profile, with all of its default values, or you can create a custom HTTP profile. This particular implementation uses the default HTTP profile.

When you configure the BIG-IP system to manage HTTP traffic, you can also implement simple session persistence, also known as source address affinity persistence. Source address affinity persistence directs session requests to the same server based solely on the source IP address of a packet. To implement source address affinity persistence, the BIG-IP system offers a default persistence profile that you can implement. Just as for HTTP, you can use the default profile, or you can create a custom simple persistence profile.

Task summary

This implementation describes how to set up a basic HTTP load balancing scenario and source address affinity persistence, using the default HTTP and source address affinity persistence profiles.

Because this implementation configures HTTP load balancing and session persistence using the default HTTP and persistence profiles, you do not need to specifically configure these profiles. Instead, you simply configure some settings on the virtual server when you create it.

Task list

Creating a pool to process HTTP traffic

You can create a pool of web servers to process HTTP requests.
  1. On the Main tab, click Local Traffic > Pools .
    The Pool List screen opens.
  2. Click Create.
    The New Pool screen opens.
  3. In the Name field, type a unique name for the pool.
  4. For the Health Monitors setting, from the Available list, select the http monitor and move the monitor to the Active list.
  5. From the Load Balancing Method list, select how the system distributes traffic to members of this pool.
    The default is Round Robin.
  6. For the Priority Group Activation setting, specify how to handle priority groups:
    • Select Disabled to disable priority groups. This is the default option.
    • Select Less than, and in the Available Members field type the minimum number of members that must remain available in each priority group in order for traffic to remain confined to that group.
  7. Using the New Members setting, add each resource that you want to include in the pool:
    1. Type an IP address in the Address field.
    2. Type 80 in the Service Port field, or select HTTP from the list.
    3. (Optional) Type a priority number in the Priority field.
    4. Click Add.
  8. Click Finished.
The new pool appears in the Pools list.

Creating a virtual server for HTTP traffic

This task creates a destination IP address for application traffic. As part of this task, you must assign the relevant pool to the virtual server.
  1. On the Main tab, click Local Traffic > Virtual Servers .
    The Virtual Server List screen opens.
  2. Click the Create button.
    The New Virtual Server screen opens.
  3. In the Name field, type a unique name for the virtual server.
  4. In the Destination Address/Mask field, type the IP address in CIDR format.
    The supported format is address/prefix, where the prefix length is in bits. For example, an IPv4 address/prefix is 10.0.0.1 or 10.0.0.0/24, and an IPv6 address/prefix is ffe1::0020/64 or 2001:ed8:77b5:2:10:10:100:42/64. When you use an IPv4 address without specifying a prefix, the BIG-IP® system automatically uses a /32 prefix.
    Note: The IP address you type must be available and not in the loopback network.
  5. In the Service Port field, type 80, or select HTTP from the list.
  6. From the HTTP Profile list, select http.
  7. In the Resources area of the screen, from the Default Pool list, select the relevant pool name.
  8. From the Default Persistence Profile list, select source_addr.
    This implements simple persistence, using the default source address affinity profile.
  9. Click Finished.
You now have a virtual server to use as a destination address for application traffic.