Administration Guide › Configuring Proxy Rules › Proxy Rules Overview › Proxy Rules Terminology

Previous Topic: Planning Routes for Incoming Requests

Next Topic: Establish a Proxy Rules Configuration File

Proxy Rules Terminology

The proxy rules configuration file is a description of the XML elements that the SPS uses when routing user requests. The following terms are used to describe the proxy rules:

Destinations

A destination is a URL that fulfills a request. The SPS forwards a request to a destination, or sends a redirect response to a user that specifies a destination. A set of proxy rules must contain destinations that can be reached according to the conditions and cases defined in the proxy rules.

Conditions

A condition is an attribute of a request that allows the SPS to determine the destination of a request. Each condition may have many cases that the SPS evaluates to direct a request to the appropriate destination. Each condition must contain a default element that defines the behavior if a request does not match any of the cases defined in the condition.

The conditions may include any one or more of the following:

URI

The SPS uses the portion of the requested URL after the hostname to determine how to route a request. Using criteria described in the DTD, a portion of a URI, such as the file extension of the requested resource, can be used to route requests.

Query String

The SPS uses the query string portion of a URI to determine how to route a request. The query string includes all the characters following a '?' in the request.

Host

The SPS uses the requested server hostname to determine how to route a request. The port number of the hostname can also be used as criteria for routing requests. This condition is used when the proxy has more than one virtual server.

Header

Uses the value of any HTTP header to determine how to route a request. To route requests based on the type of device being used to access resources, requests may be routed according to the USER_AGENT HTTP header.

Note: HTTP headers derived from SiteMinder responses may be used to determine how to route a request.

Cases

A case is a set of specific values for conditions that provide the information the SPS needs to determine the ultimate destination for a request. For example, if a set of proxy rules uses the host condition, cases include the virtual hosts configured for the system, such as home.company.com and banking.company.com.