Tagging rules based on HTTP request headers

[JT]

I am monitoring HTTP traffic to web applications and would like to create an automatic tagging rule that would assign a tag when a specific HTTP request header is present in the request.  Ideally the value associated with the request header would be used as the value of the tag.  I looked into the automatic tagging rules in Settings but I wasn't able to put together anything that used the request header.  Is it possible? how?

Thanks,    JT

[ChadTurner · Accepted solution]

So this cant be done as a tag, but you can accomplish it via a Request Attribute. This RA will then only be applicable at the request level. You can however extend it past that by adding it to user sessions as a string property and even filter on your services based off the RA value. But Tags in the sense of Manual and Automatic tags, thats not going to work out. 

[JT]

Excellent suggestion.  I'll set that up right now.  Thanks,

JT

[paolo_fumanelli]

It is possible also do the following:

1. Create the mentioned Request Attribute based on HTTP request header
2. Set up a request naming rule that adds that RA as request name suffix and then mark resulting requests as key request
3. Tag those requests (service methods) by using api/v2/tags. You'll tag all requests ending with a specific suffix, with that suffix.

This requires you know in advance the possible values of that HTTP header though.

@ChadTurner what do you think?

[ChadTurner]

steps 2 and 3 you could do, but you'd also be alerting the name of the services that staff might already be familiar with. If you made the RA, you can already filter on the RA Value in many of the charts, if you wan to trickle them back to the host you could also do this via entity selection with relationship variables. It all depends on how deep into the weeds you want to go. 

[paolo_fumanelli]

Sure, right point. Only in data explorer you can't, if I'm not wrong you can filter by RA presence, not value. 

Thanks for your pov.

Bye!
Paolo