Introduction

An IP Target Group is a type of load balancer server group that uses IP addresses as targets. It is a component of the load balancer service, designed to distribute incoming network traffic to specified target IPs. This allows routing to IP address-based targets such as BCC instances, containers, and IPs within an IDC. It enables you to configure targets using IP addresses while dynamically directing traffic to one of the designated targets.

Advantages

IP groups allow you to customize targets, including those across VPCs and IDCs, offering greater flexibility and supporting a broader range of networking scenarios.

Operation

Create IP group

• On the Application BLB Instance List page, click the BLB instance name to navigate to the Instance Details page.
• On the Instance Details page, navigate to the left panel and select Target Group. Then, choose the IP group tab from the top options.
• Click on Add IP Group.

Selection of IP group type

The current IP group is of the following five types: same region - same VPC, same region - cross VPC, cross region, hybrid cloud, and custom IP. Where, the supported scenarios for each type are as follows:

Open protocol

• In the Open Protocol section, select Add Protocol, and configure health check settings there.
• Open protocols refer to the access protocol methods supported by the load balancer for frontends. For IP groups, client access will be redirected to the ports specified in the IP entries configured in IP Management.
• For health check requests, if no specific health check port is set, the request will be redirected to the ports specified in IP Management's IP entries. If a health check port has been configured, requests will instead be sent to the user-defined health check port for all the IPs specified in IP Management.

Add IP

Click Add under IP Management to include the required real server IPs. You can add a single or multiple IPs as needed.

• When adding multiple IPs, the same port for all chosen IPs will be registered to the IP group simultaneously.
• If the custom IP type is selected for the IP group, you must specify the type of each IP entry based on their actual conditions.
• The system reserves the first IP address in a subnet, and IP addresses ending with .0.1 are not supported.

Click Confirm to successfully create the IP group.

Bind IP group to listener

Create a listener in the corresponding load balancer instance and then bind this IP group to the listener. Note: The listener protocol must match the open protocols of the IP group. If not, you can add new open protocols in the IP group.

Configure route

If your configured IP is in a same-region cross-VPC, cross-region, hybrid cloud, or custom IP scenario, you also need to configure corresponding routes based on the network environment. These routes include the route for the load balancer to access real servers and the back-to-source route from real servers.

Configure routes according to the operation documentation of your VPN, CSN, peering connections, or dedicated line products.
Note: When the peering connections are established for same region - cross VPC or cross region cross VPC IP groups, a ticket shall be submitted to configure custom routes.

Manage IP group

You can manage IP groups on the Target Group List page.

• To add a new open protocol, click "Add Protocol" in the operation bar.
• To manage existing open protocols or health checks, click the icon in the Protocol/Rule Binding Count bar to delete or modify current protocols.
• To manage IP entries in an IP group, click "Manage IP Group" in the operation bar to add, edit, or delete IP entries.

Usage restrictions of cross-VPC scenario access protocols of IP groups

Note: When peering connections are established for same-region cross-VPC or cross-region cross-VPC IP groups, you must submit a ticket to configure custom routes.

Currently, cross-VPC access scenarios with IP groups are supported as follows:

Instructions for cascading mounting of load balancers

When the backend mounted IP is actually the frontend IP of the load balancer, it creates a cascaded mounting of the load balancer. Avoid mounting load balancers as the real servers of each other, as this may lead to network loops and disrupt normal business operations.