What's the difference between the RuleBuilder and the TrafficScript language?
The full TrafficScript language gives you access to over 200 functions, with the support of a proper programming language - variables, tests, loops and other flow control. So, you can write TrafficScript rules much as you'd write Perl scripts (or BASIC, C, etc).
The RuleBuilder gives you a UI that lets you configure tests, and actions which are executed if one-of or all-of the tests are satisfied. The tests and actions you can use are predefined, and just cover a small subset of the full functionset of TrafficScript. You can use the RuleBuilder much as you'd use the filtering rules in your email client.
Conditions
The RuleBuilder lets you test the following values in its conditions.
- Remote IP Address
- This is the IP address of the client who is connecting to the ZXTM.
- Local IP Address
- This is the IP address on the ZXTM which the client connects to.
- Remote Port
- This is the port on the client machine from which the connection was made.
Note that we do not need a corresponding Local Port option as this is determined by the virtual server to which the connection was made.
- Cookie
- When supplied with a cookie name this will return the value of that cookie for the http connection. If the cookie does not exist, this will return the empty string.
- HTTP Header
- When supplied with an HTTP header name this will return the value of that header for the http connection, or the empty string if the header does not exist or has an empty value. The header name is automatically translated into the proper case for the lookup.
- HTTP Method
- This is the HTTP method used for the connection. Choosing this modifies the expression for the condition to offer the choices GET or POST.
- Query String
- This is the portion of the request URL after the '?'. This will return the empty string if no query string was provided.
For example, a raw url of http://www.example.com/content?page=44 will be returned as page=44.
- URL Path
- This returns the %-decoded path in the HTTP request URL, stripping the query string if one was provided. If there is a leading scheme and authority prefix, this is removed as well.
For example, a raw url of http://www.example.com/content?page=44 will be returned as /content.
- Raw URL
- This is the full URL of the client request provided in the first line of the HTTP request, after the method and before the HTTP version specifier. The raw URL data includes both the path and query string if supplied and is not decoded. It could contain %-escaped characters that can be used to disguise the contents of the URL. Similarly, the file path in the URL could be non-normalized and may contain '.' and '..' references, such as /sales//.././../../etc/passwd.
- HTTP Version
- This is the version of the HTTP protocol specified in the client request. Choosing this modifies the expression for the condition to offer the choices 1.0 and 1.1.
- HTTP Response Body
- This is the body data of an HTTP request.
- HTTP Response Header
- This is the value of a named HTTP header in the HTTP response, or the empty string if the header does not exist or has an empty value. The header name is automatically translated into the proper case for the lookup.
- HTTP Response Code
- This is the status code from the first line of the HTTP response.
- Response Body
- Returns the number of bytes of content that you have specified to read from the body of the response.
Warning: you can stall a connection by asking it to read more data than the remote client will provide.
Actions
The RuleBuilder lets you choose one or more of the followng actions when the conditions are met.
- Log Error
- This logs out the supplied value to the error log with the severity of an error.
- Log Warning
- This logs out the supplied value to the error log with the severity of a warning.
- Log Information
- This logs out the supplied value to the error log for your information, not as an error.
- Set Persistence
- Picks a Session Persistence class to associate with this request.
- Set SLM
- Picks a Service Level Monitoring class to associate with this request.
- HTTP Redirect
- Sends a redirect response to the client to the URL supplied.
- Drop Connection
- This drops the current connection being processed by the rule.
- Add Header
- This adds a header to the HTTP request. If the header already exists in the response, then this value will be appended to the existing value. The header name is automatically translated to the correct case before it is added.
For example, to add a missing Host header set Header Name = Host and Value = unknown.
- Set Header
- This sets a header in the HTTP request. If the header already exists, then it will be replaced with this new value. The header name is automatically translated to the correct case before it is added.
- Delete Header
- This deletes a header in the HTTP request.
- Set Request Bandwidth
- Picks a Bandwidth class to associate with this request.
- Set URL Path
- This replaces the URL path portion of the incoming HTTP request. If the replacement value contains a '?', this will also replace the query string; otherwise, any query string is preserved. Any control characters are %-encoded in the replacement value.
For example, setting New Path = /purchase?product=widget will replace the URL path and the query string.
- Rewrite URL Path
- This performs a regular expression match on the URL path using the supplied pattern and then replaces each matching substring with the supplied replacement. The replacement string may contain $1 .. $9 substitutions, which reference bracketed sub-expressions in the regular expression.
For example, setting Pattern = ^/secure and Replacement = /private will replace each URL path starting with /secure by a URL path starting with /private.
- Choose Pool
- This selects a pool to send the incoming request to and exits the rule immediately.
- Add Response Header
- This adds a header to the HTTP response. If the header already exists, then this value will be appended to the existing value. The header name is automatically translated to the correct case before it is added.
For example, setting Header Name = Set-Cookie and Value = "id=12345678; path=/" will add an id cookie with value 12345678.
- Set Response Header
- This sets a header in the HTTP response. If the header already exists, then it will be replaced with this new value. The header name is automatically translated to the correct case before it is added.
- Delete Response Header
- This removes the named HTTP header from the HTTP response. The header name is automatically translated to the correct case.
- Set Response Cookie
- This sets the value of the named cookie in the HTTP response. If the named cookie already exists, this replaces its value.
- Delete Response Cookie
- This removes the named cookie from the HTTP response
- Permit Header
- This removes all HTTP headers except those supplied as a space separated list.
- Set Response Bandwidth
- Picks a Bandwidth class to associate with this response.
