Request Tagging and categorisation

Web requests that come in to the load balancer are classified into two different categories based on the URI. Following categorisation, requests are then tagged to denote the area in which they belong.

All requests will be first categorised, then tagged, so requests will be static or dynamic and frontend or admin. You can see how your requests are being tagged by debugging response headers.

	Description
Category
Static	This is files that already exist on disk, examples would be images, stylesheets and javascript files; a full definition can be found here
Dynamic	This is files that do not exist on disk, but are generated on-the-fly. This includes any PHP based request such as a Magento page
Tag
Frontend	Requests that are typically only seen on the frontend of a Magento store (eg. /checkout)
Admin	Requests that are typically only seen in the admin of a Magento store (eg. /admin)

To ensure a fast, stable and secure site - its important that all requests are tagged appropriately, as the stack will behave differently based on the request category and tag.

Category/Tag	DOS Threshold	Timeout	Memory Limit	Configuration File
Static	750 Requests	50s	Standard	___general/example.com.location.semi-static.conf ___general/example.com.location.static.conf
Dynamic	25 Requests	50s	Standard	___general/example.com.conf
Frontend		50s	Standard
Admin	Infinite	7200s	Elevated

Examples

/skin/frontend/base/default/images/logo.png

• Static - Based on the trailing part of the URI (.png)
• Frontend - The leading part of the URI is not a known admin area

/admin/

• Dynamic - The URI does not contain a file extension
• Admin - The URI is a known admin area

/downloader/favicon.ico

• Static - Based on the trailing part of the URI (.ico)
• Admin - The URI is a known admin area