There are two type of content rules: Content Matching Rules and Header Modification Rules. The latter option is used to rewrite URLs ‘on the fly’ and are beyond the scope of this document. For more information on Header Modification Rules, refer to the Content Rules, Feature Description.

Content matching rules will be used to identify what traffic is currently entering the load balancer. Based on the scenario above, there are multiple ways we can approach the problem.

The first approach would be to have all traffic be forwarded to Exchange, unless there is a match for Microsoft Lync traffic. This means that we would only have to create two different content matching rules:

Lyncdiscover.domain.com

LyncExt.domain.com

The second approach would be to create a content matching rule per workload or hostname:

Mail.domain.com

Autodiscover.domain.com

Lyncdiscover.domain.com

LyncExt.domain.com

For this scenario, we will use the latter option.

To create a new content matching rule, follow the steps below in the LoadMaster Web User Interface (WUI):

  1. In the main menu, select Rules & Checking.
  2. Select Content Rules.
  3. Click Create New.

  4. Enter a recognizable Rule Name, for example LyncDiscover.
  5. Enter host in the Header Field text box.
  6. Enter lyncdiscover.domain.com in the Match String text box.
  7. Click Create Rule.
  8. Repeat steps 3 to 7 above to add the other rules, but for step 6 - enter the following values in the Match String text box:

mail.domain.com

autodiscover.domain.com

LyncExt.domain.com

After completing these steps, you should have four distinct content rules. One for each of the hostnames we identified earlier.