Services Overview

Last updated on 2013-05-07 15:39:43

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A Service is a combination of a Virtual IP (VIP) address and one or more TCP/UDP ports. Traffic arriving at the designated port(s) for the specified Virtual IP address is directed to one of the Real Servers that are associated with that particular Service. The Barracuda Load Balancer determines which connections or requests are distributed to each Real Server based on the scheduling policy selected for the Service.

The BASIC > Services page lets you create Services by identifying a Virtual IP address, port and one or more Real Servers. Once you have created a Service, you can configure advanced settings (including Service type) by clicking the Edit icon next to the Service. If the creation of the Service is successful, the Service name appears on the BASIC > Services page with a green, orange, or red health indicator next to it.

You can select either the Basic or Advanced view when adding a Service. The Advanced option allows you to configure more parameters (including Service Type) when adding a Service. Once the Service is added, you can change its settings by clicking Edit on the Service entry in the table.

Basic View

You have two options for creating a new Service in the Basic view.

Option 1:

Enter the Service Name and Virtual IP address. In the protocol list click TCP or UDP.
Enter the TCP/UDP port that the Service will listen on. This may be any TCP port or, if this is a Layer 4 Service, ALL for all ports.
Enter the IP address(es) of the Real Servers that will perform the actual function(s) for this Service.
Click Add.

Option 2:

Click Auto-Discover. Auto-Discover displays another dialog which presents a list of all servers that are currently available and responding to this Barracuda Load Balancer. You can fill in the same fields as above to create a new Service.

Advanced View

Use the following steps to create a new Service in the Advanced view.

Enter the Service Name and select the Service Type.
Enter the Virtual IP address. Enter the TCP/UDP port that the Service will listen on. This may be any TCP port or, if this is a Layer 4 Service, ALL for all ports.
If this is a secure Service (e.g. type Secure TCP Proxy, Layer 7 - HTTPS, Layer 7 - FTPS), select the SSL certificate that is to be used to decrypt the incoming traffic. Add certificates using the Basic > Certificates page.
Select the interface from the dropdown. Interfaces can be configured on the Advanced > Advanced IP Config page.
Enter the IP address(es) of the Real Servers that will perform the actual function(s) for this Service and click the + button. Click Add Service when the list is done.
or:
Click Auto-Discover to display a dialog that presents a list of all servers that are currently available and responding to this Barracuda Load Balancer. Select the Real Servers for this Service and click Add Service.

Port Settings

If the port for a Service is set to ALL, then traffic received by a port on that Service is directed to the corresponding port on the Real Server. However, you may want the Service to listen on a different port than the port used to communicate with the Real Server. As long as the port for a Service is a numeric value, you can change the port used to receive traffic on the Real Server by clicking the Edit icon next to the Real Server.

As an example, a Service that supports HTTPS may listen on port 443. If you choose SSL offloading for this Service, you may want the Real Servers to use port 80 to receive the unencrypted traffic.

Configuring a Service

There are many additional settings associated with a Service; click the Edit icon on the Service entry in the table to view and modify these settings, including:

Service name and type
Last Resort Server
Scheduling policy
Service monitor
Persistence Settings
Content rules
SSL offloading
Notifications if number of functioning Real Servers drops below threshold
Intrusion Prevention Service
Inbound firewall rules

Basic View

To create any Service that is not Layer 4 (Basic View):

Follow the steps above to add a Service, but make sure that the Port is not set to ALL.
Once the Service is created, click Edit next to that Service.
In the Service Detail page, set the Service Type to the desired type and save your changes.

HTTP Redirect Service

You can make a Layer 7 - HTTP Service be a HTTP Redirect Service. This causes all traffic to the port for the Service to be redirected to port 443 (or the specified port) on the same Virtual IP address. Click Enable HTTP Redirect when you edit the Layer 7 - HTTP Service. Be sure to create the Service to handle the redirected traffic.

Content Rules for a Layer 7 - HTTP Service

Use the following steps to create content rules for a Layer 7 - HTTP Service:

Add a least one Real Server to a Layer 7 - HTTP or HTTPS Service.
Rule will appear in the Add column of the Service entry. Click Rule to create rules to direct traffic to Real Servers based on content of the traffic.