Cookie Insert Persistence for 1 VS with 2 Pools

Hi,

As this is my very first question, I thought it best to introduce myself prior to requesting help. 8) I am a network engineer tasked with administration of our F5 load balancers. This primarily entails deployment of tried and true web service configurations. As in most environments, web service deployments change. Although I have some experience and training in administration of the F5's, my iRule development capability is quite limited. Hence why I thought I would ask a question here, prior to loading a case through our current support partner.

I have read a lot of different articles with regards to this question over the past week, and have tried quite a few iRule variations on trying to achieve the goal, but each time some of the results have only added further questions to this challenge.

Ok, to the challenge at hand. I have 1 VS configured in which an iRule URI decider is used to determine which of 2 pools the traffic should be sent to. Pool 1 has 2 nodes, and Pool 2 has 1 node. One of the webpages located on the Pool 1 nodes, has an iFrame which calls page content from the Pool 2 node. It is important at this stage to understand that persistence to the Pool 1 node that the initial connection is established on must be maintained, otherwise you will be sent back to the login screen. Also, I am not using the default cookie names, instead we have a requirement to use non BigIP names in the persistence cookies that are handed to a client.

What I have seen during testing, is some strange occurrences, from the custom cookies for each pool being provided ok, and then in some instances I am seeing a BigIP***** cookie. I have been using Firebug to capture the client side, which is where I have seen any cookie changes during testing. Oh, and OneConnect is not enabled on the VS.

The iRule I have created is as follows:

when HTTP_REQUEST {

    set uri1cookie [HTTP::cookie exists {URI1}]
    log local0. "URI1Cookie variable value: $uri1cookie"
    set uri2cookie [HTTP::cookie exists {URI2}]
    log local0. "URI2Cookie variable value: $uri2cookie"

switch -glob [HTTP::path] {
    "/uri1*" {
                pool POOL_URI1
                if {$uri1cookie == 0} {
                    persist cookie insert URI1
                }
             }
   "/*"     {
                pool POOL_URI2
                if {$uri2cookie == 0} {
                    persist cookie insert URI2   
                }
             }
    }
}

Any pointers or link references that you may have come across, or even modifications to the very basic iRule I have compiled would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance...