F5/BigIP rule to redirect affinity-bound users from INACTIVE pool node to other ACTIVE node
- by j pimmel
We have several server nodes set up for the end users of our system and because we don't use any kind of session replication in the app servers, F5 maintains affinity for users with the ACTIVE node the client was first bound to.
At times when we want to re-deploy the app, we change the F5 config and take a node out of the ACTIVE pool. Gradually the users filter off and we can deploy, but the process is a bit slow. We can't just dump all the users into a different node because - given the update heavy nature of the user activities - we could cause them to lose changes.
That said, there is one URL/endpoint - call it http://site/product/list - which we know, when the client hits it, that we could shove them off the INACTIVE node they had affinity with and onto a different ACTIVE node.
We have had a few tries writing an F5 rule along these lines, but haven't had much success so i thought I might ask here, assuming it's possible - I have no reason to think it's not based on what we have found so far.
