``<code>|</code>'' characters which have the meaning of
``or''. In other words they indicate a set of
alternatives from which the actual returned value is
- chosen randomly. Although this sounds crazy and useless,
- it was actually designed for load balancing in a reverse
- proxy situation where the looked up values are server
- names. Example:</p>
-
-<div class="example"><pre>
+ chosen randomly. For example, you might use the following map
+ file and directives to provide a random load balancing between
+ several back-end server, via a reverse-proxy. Images are sent
+ to one of the servers in the 'static' pool, while everything
+ else is sent to one of the 'dynamic' pool.</p>
+ <p>Example:</p>
+
+<div class="example"><h3>Rewrite map file</h3><pre>
##
## map.txt -- rewriting map
##
dynamic www5|www6
</pre></div>
-<div class="example"><p><code>
-RewriteMap servers rnd:/path/to/file/map.txt
+<div class="example"><h3>Configuration directives</h3><p><code>
+RewriteMap servers rnd:/path/to/file/map.txt<br />
+<br />
+RewriteRule ^/(.*\.(png|gif|jpg)) http://${servers:static}/$1
+[NC,P,L]<br />
+RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://${servers:dynamic}/$1 [P,L]
</code></p></div>
</li>
``<code>|</code>'' characters which have the meaning of
``or''. In other words they indicate a set of
alternatives from which the actual returned value is
- chosen randomly. Although this sounds crazy and useless,
- it was actually designed for load balancing in a reverse
- proxy situation where the looked up values are server
- names. Example:</p>
-
-<example>
+ chosen randomly. For example, you might use the following map
+ file and directives to provide a random load balancing between
+ several back-end server, via a reverse-proxy. Images are sent
+ to one of the servers in the 'static' pool, while everything
+ else is sent to one of the 'dynamic' pool.</p>
+ <p>Example:</p>
+
+<example><title>Rewrite map file</title>
<pre>
##
## map.txt -- rewriting map
</pre>
</example>
-<example>
-RewriteMap servers rnd:/path/to/file/map.txt
+<example><title>Configuration directives</title>
+RewriteMap servers rnd:/path/to/file/map.txt<br />
+<br />
+RewriteRule ^/(.*\.(png|gif|jpg)) http://${servers:static}/$1
+[NC,P,L]<br />
+RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://${servers:dynamic}/$1 [P,L]
</example>
</li>