How to redirect requests to an HTML "maintenance" page when servers downed?

[m.mertens]

I have a customer doing basic load balancing. There is a vendor here that said he had seen at another customer location a setup as follows: If both/all servers are taken down for maintenance, client HTTP requests would be redirected to an HTML page saying that "servers were down for maintenance" rather than having the HTTP "get" time out. My customer now loves this idea.

I see that I can set up a "sorry server" and redirect all content requests to that. But let's say a client is hitting a server when the servers are taken down- how does the "get" request specified in the client URL get "translated" to the HTML file name of the "down-for-maintenance" page. I'm not a programmer, but is there anyway, anywhere to translate URL's so that after the CSS redirects the URL request to the sorry server, something translates any/all URL's to the location of the "down-for-maintenance" page ? Any help/direction is appreciated.

Mike.

[Gilles Dufour]

just configure your sorryserver service as type redirect like this :

CS150# configure

CS150(config)# service chad

CS150(config-service[chad])# ip address 4.4.4.4

CS150(config-service[chad])# keepalive type none (because it's really a fake server)....

CS150(config-service[chad])# redirect-string www.espn.com

CS150(config-service[chad])# type redirect

CS150(config-service[chad])# act

CS150(config-service[chad])# ex

The following link is good to understand redirect on the CSS

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/contnetw/ps789/products_configuration_example09186a0080094068.shtml

Regards,

Gilles.

[m.mertens]

Gilles,

Thanks for getting back to me in such short time. In reading the following doc: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/products/hw/contnetw/ps792/products_configuration_guide_chapter09186a00801579c3.html#1063073

I had gleamed that an "object moved" message would have to be generated from some redirect service (web server ?) in order for the CSS redirect string to come into play. Getting back to my scenario, if I have a sorryserver defined, and the other two production servers die, would the redirect service come into play without an "object moved" message being sent to the CSS from a web server ?

Thanks Gilles for any further assistance,

Mike.

[Gilles Dufour]

The css will generate the HTTP 302 object move message when all other services are down (assuming you have configured the sorry server).

In the same HTTP response the CSS will include the new location (that you define with the redirect-string command).

So, in your case, point the 'redirect-string' to your 'site under construction' page/server.

Gilles.

[m.mertens]

Gilles,

I definitely appreciate it. Maybe it's my comprehension level but the doc's were fairly ambiguous as to where the 302 message was generated from and it just made snese to me that it was from the server.

Thanks again,

Mike.