HTTP probe in ACE

Question

we have a simple layer3-4 port 80 app thta is being load balanced by ACE and created an HTTP probe that actually acts more like a TCP probe, since we took a default on just about all the attributes:
probe http WEB_SERVERS
expect status 200 200
Unfortunately, when we activated this probe, we saw the following:
probe : WEB_SERVERS
type : HTTP
state : ACTIVE
description :
port : 80 address : 0.0.0.0 addr type : -
interval : 120 pass intvl : 300 pass count : 3
fail count: 3 recv timeout: 10
http method : GET
http url : /
conn termination : GRACEFUL
expect offset : 0 , open timeout : 10
expect regex : -
send data : -
--------------------- probe results --------------------
probe association probed-address probes failed passed health
------------------- ---------------+----------+----------+----------+-------
real : Planview_136.39[0]
167.238.136.39 1 1 0 FAILED
Socket state : CLOSED
No. Passed states : 0 No. Failed states : 1
No. Probes skipped : 0 Last status code : 302
No. Out of Sockets : 0 No. Internal error: 0
Last disconnect err : Received invalid status code
Last probe time : Wed Jul 22 15:07:20 2009
Last fail time : Wed Jul 22 15:07:21 2009
Last active time : Never
real : Planview_136.40[0]
167.238.136.40 1 1 0 FAILED
Socket state : CLOSED
No. Passed states : 0 No. Failed states : 1
No. Probes skipped : 0 Last status code : 302
No. Out of Sockets : 0 No. Internal error: 0
Last disconnect err : Received invalid status code
Last probe time : Wed Jul 22 15:07:20 2009
Last fail time : Wed Jul 22 15:07:21 2009
Last active time : Never
The obvious culprit here is the return code. How do we assign the correct return code here?
Thanks...

Answer 1

Hi,
I wouldn't just let it default. It is better to probe for a particular page if that is possible. If this is a page you create, then it offers the possibility of being able to take a server out of rotation simply by renaming the page. E.g.
probe http PROBE-iamhere
interval 30
passdetect interval 10
request method head url /serverhere.html
expect status 200 200
Alternatively, it looks like you are getting a 302 response code (a redirect) then you could just change the line in the probe to expect that.
probe http WEB_SERVERS
expect status 302 302.
HTH
Cathy