Manual Chapter : Introduction to MRF Generic Message Protocol

Applies To:

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BIG-IP LTM

  • 15.0.1, 15.0.0, 14.1.3, 14.1.2, 14.1.0, 14.0.1, 14.0.0, 13.1.3, 13.1.1, 13.1.0
Manual Chapter

Introduction

A BIG-IP® system provides advanced Message Routing Framework (MRF) capabilities. The BIG-IP Generic Message Protocol is a prototype implementation of a protocol filter compatible with MRF. It provides iRule commands to enable a script writer to parse an input stream into messages to be routed by the Message Routing Framework. It also provides a route table implemention supporting both static routes and dynamic routes.

This guide is designed to introduce the reader to Generic Message Configuration Objects as well as provide an example of how to use Generic Message.

Capabilties

The Generic Message protocol provides a sample implementation of a message routing protocol filter. This section provides a concise summary of the BIG-IP® Generic Message solution:

  • Accepting client connections from a peer
  • Establishing connections with a peer
  • Asking the peer for its routing name
  • Adding a dynamic route for the peer
  • Registration of static routes to pool
  • Separating packets into messages to be routed
  • Designating a source and destination address for messages
  • Support for both request and answer messages
  • Appropriately setting the nexthop attribute of an answer message to the lasthop of the request message to instruct the message router to bypass route lookup.
  • Ability for an iRule script to make the route selection and bypass route lookup.
  • Ability for an iRule script to set and/or modify the source and destination addresses of a message.
  • Ability for an iRule script to create a new message.
  • Ability for an iRule script to drop a message.

A genericmessage profile is currently available via tmsh. There is currently no plan to include this in iControl or GUI.

Warning

Warning: Generic Message should not be accessed though the GUI. It is a TMSH only feature. If the Generic Message Virtual Server is saved through the GUI it will cause Generic Message to stop functioning.