Understanding the Configuration

It is now time to take a closer look "under the hood" to give you an understanding of what just happened. The first thing to look at is the configuration that we just deployed. Select it again for a closer look:

Configurations tree

Configurations are what tie a solution together.

Each solution consists of a number of building blocks which can include several rule sets, data files, content files, database configurations, field settings, input source definitions and much more:

General tab

To learn what this configuration does, you can review each of the various tabs and look at each rule set. Alternatively, click on Document, and select a target server:

Details

Select the Proxy Server and click on Document.

A new page will appear that contains a complete summary of the configuration:

Summary of the configuration

This page is specifically designed for printing a given configuration for audit purposes, but it is also an excellent way to get a quick understanding of what is going on in a rule set. Just focusing on the rules in this case, scroll to the bottom of the document:

BasicWebLister rule set

Details

The rule set shown (BasicWebLister) is executed whenever a request is sent from the browser to the server. The rule set is effectively a flow chart, executing from the green dot on the left through the rules towards the right. This is a very simple rule set with no decisions, so the flow should be very clear.

The summary page below the rule set shows the properties set for each rule, but for the sake of understanding, we will elaborate a little further:

• The first rule executed is the HTTP Request Tracker rule. This rule takes a basic HTTP request and extracts all of the common header attributes from it (header names, request URL, tracking cookies etc.) and places that information in variables. It also sets tracking cookies (if Use cookies is set to Yes).

• The second rule is the MaxMind Geo Info rule. It uses the IP address supplied on the HTTP request and attempts to convert it to a physical location (country and city) using the MaxMind Geo Location database. In this case, the rule returns nothing, as the localhost IP address (127.0.0.1) doesn't resolve to any country in the data lookup.

Finally, the List Variables rule sends all of the variables that have a value to the server console viewer so that the user can examine them, which is what you saw earlier.

server console

The purpose of the configuration we just deployed and tested is to obtain the HTTP request data, augment it with Geolocation and then send the information to the console. If you scroll down the server console viewer, you will notice the various requests coming in, including requests for images, style sheets, icons and so on.