Hi Steve,

have traversed the documents and come to the conclusion that there is no need to set the server names in the servers section of any of the umbracoSettings.config files when using flexible load balancing. Firstly, is this correct?

This is correct

So, if I am using the Option #2 : File Storage with File Replication approach where I have one back-office server: 'a.com' and two front-end servers behind a load balancer: 'b.com', what is to stop a person accessing the back-office via the url: b.com/umbraco?

Is it correct just to set up a rewrite rule so that b.com/umbraco goes to a.com/umbraco or should this be done in a different way?

You can do this by adding a rewrite url in your web.config

 <rule name="Backoffice access" enabled="true">
          <match url="^umbraco(#/)?(#)?(.*)"/>
          <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
            <add input="{R:0}" pattern="^umbraco/masterpages/?" ignoreCase="true" negate="true"/>
            <add input="{R:0}" pattern="^umbraco/RestServices/?" ignoreCase="true" negate="true"/>
            <add input="{R:0}" pattern="^umbraco/webservices/?" ignoreCase="true" negate="true"/>
            <add input="{R:0}" pattern="^umbraco/Surface/?" ignoreCase="true" negate="true"/>
            <add input="{R:0}" pattern="^umbraco/api/?" ignoreCase="true" negate="true"/>
            <add input="{R:0}" pattern="^umbraco/ping.aspx" ignoreCase="true" negate="true"/>
            <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="^(a.com)$" ignoreCase="true" negate="true"/>
          </conditions>
          <action type="Redirect" url="http://{HTTP_HOST}/"/>
        </rule>

This rewrite will restrict backoffice access, so it is only available on server a.com.

Dave

Hi Dave,

Many thanks for the reply and especially for including the rewrite rules (I had forgotten about umbraco/api etc.)

We just went live with the load balanced system and seems to be behaving well.

Thank you,

Best regards,

Steve

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