Akamai Property: One Edge Config
An Akamai property is one edge config: hostnames, origin, rule tree, CP code, and versions. Plus the three rules in it that mattered for this cache story.
A property is one Akamai config. It decides how the edge serves files: cache rules, origin routing, header changes, and security settings.
The CDN we use is Akamai. To know how the edge handles a file, the first step is to read the property.
- One property can serve many hostnames. These hostnames share the same origin and the same rules (The Path of One Request).
- Edge hostname: the Akamai domain that DNS points to. It ends in
.akamaized.net. Users do not see it in the address bar. - CP code (Content Provider code): Akamai uses it for billing, reports, and monitoring. Every property needs one.
- Rule tree: the set of all behaviors, such as TTL, header injection, and path matching. You can view it in the CLI and in the web console.
- Version: every change makes a new version. The production network runs only one version at a time.
Three Rules That Matter for This Story
When I read the rule tree, only three rules mattered for this story:
- One rule sets the TTL (TTL Is Set in Three Places).
- One rule adds the bypass header to every request sent to the origin (Cache Headers: Who Sets, Who Reads).
- One rule adds the proxy header to html, css, and js requests (How the Load Balancer Picks a Backend).
The whole problem later is that these three rules do not match the next layer (Two Cache Layers: What I Believed).
However clear a config is, it controls only its own layer.
Sources: Akamai: hostname buckets
Related: Akamai Tools: Purge and CLI, The Path of One Request, Two Cache Layers: What I Believed. Or go back to the series overview.