A description of how the ESP steering groups work is provided below:

  1. The names of the desired Active Directory groups to perform steering on are entered into the Steering Groups text box in the Virtual Service modify screen in the LoadMaster.
  2. When steering groups are specified in a Virtual Service and a user logs in, the username is tested to check if it exists in any of the steering groups, starting from the left.
  3. If there is a match, the index of the matching group is returned in a cookie to the client. The index of the steering group is determined based on the position of the steering group in the Steering Groups text box, (i.e. the first group in the list has an index of 1, the second has an index of 2 and so on.) If the user is in multiple groups, the index of the first group in which the user is found is returned.
  4. Content rules should be created to match each of the steering groups and assigned to the relevant Real Servers. On subsequent logins, the index number is used steer the traffic to the relevant Real Server.

For step-by-step instructions on how to configure this, refer to the Configure ESP Steering Groups in the LoadMaster section.