This page describes how to modify the default naming configuration for network requests and create include/exclude naming rules for network requests.

If you create a rule for capturing mobile network requests and later disable the rule, the URLs that were formerly captured by the rule will be displayed with the network request name "/" unless you have another rule that captures the URL. To avoid this from occurring, you can create a custom rule that serves as a catch-all for URLs that are not captured by custom rules. See Network Request Limits.

Default Network Request Naming Configuration

By default, AppDynamics names network requests using:

  • Hostname
  • First two segments of the URL

For example, if an application makes this HTTP request:

http://myapp.com/friends/profiles/12345

The default name that is displayed in the Controller UI for that request is:

myapp.com/friends/profiles

If this is adequate for your needs, you can leave the default setting.  

The naming rules you configure here apply to all the mobile applications that are in the same Mobile App Group.

Modify the Default Naming Configuration Rule

You may want to configure a different default rule for naming your network requests to help you visualize the parts of your application more clearly. The task is similar to configuring naming rules for business transactions on the server side. Try to group logically related requests together while keeping unrelated requests in separate groups. 

  • If the default hostname and first two segments of the URL for all your requests are identical, you might want to name the requests based on the last segments or a selection of non-contiguous segments of the URL to distinguish among requests in the network requests list.
  • You can also name the requests based on query parameters. For example, if the request passes an order number, you could specify that the value of the order-number query parameter is used in the network request name.
  • You can also base the name on a regular expression run on the URL. AppDynamics uses the Java libraries for regular expressions. See:

Modify the Default Network Request Naming Rule

The default configuration covers how all your requests are named if you do not customize them further.

  1. From the Network Request tab, scroll down to the Include Rules section.
  2. Double-click Default Naming Configuration.
  3. In the Include Rule dialog, select the elements you want to use for your default network request naming.
  4. Click OK.
  5. Click Save.

Create Mobile Include Rules

By default, the same request naming rule is applied to every URL that your application requests. If you want to apply different naming rules to different URLs, create include rules.

For example, if some requests call your own in-house server and others call out to a third-party API, you may want to see all the third-party API calls as one network request and use the default naming rules for the calls to your own server. You would create a custom naming rule that matches the third party calls and uses only the host in the default rule name or perhaps also include certain query parameters.

Create an Include Rule

  1. From the Network Request tab, scroll down to the Include Rules section.
  2. Click Add.
  3. In the Include Rule dialog, enter a name for the custom rule that you are creating.
  4. Check the Enabled check box to enable the rule.
  5. Select the check boxes and radio buttons and enter the match criteria for AppDynamics to use to name network requests.
  6. Click OK.

Guidelines for Using Regular Expressions in Mobile Include Rules

When using regular expressions to match URLs in your include rules, you should note the following:

  • URL strings are case-sensitive. So, although the page names displayed in the Network Request Dashboard are converted to lowercase, your regular expressions still need to match the case used in URLs that your include rule are trying to capture.
  • Your regular expression should match the entire URL, from beginning to end, not just a section; otherwise, the rule will not match. This differs from using regular expressions in custom match rules for naming transactions, which only need to match sections of the URL.

Sample Include Rule

The following rule creates a custom match rule for requests in which the URL contains "ourpartner.com". This rule uses the protocol, the subdomain and the third and fourth segments of the URL in the network request name.

Include Rule

You can temporarily cancel the application of a custom naming rule by clearing the Enabled checkbox in the custom rule configuration. In this case, the default naming rule is applied to requests that would have been named by the disabled custom rule. To remove the rule permanently, select the custom rule in the Custom Naming Rules list and click the Delete icon.

Create Mobile Exclude Rules

If there are certain types of requests that you do not want to monitor, create custom exclude rules for them based on the URL and/or the application name. Excluded network requests are not reported or counted toward the network request limit of 500 requests per controller application.

Create an Exclude Rule

  1. From the Network Request tab, scroll down to the Exclude Rules section.
  2. Click Add.
  3. In the Exclude Rule dialog, enter a name for the exclude rule that you are creating.
  4. Check the Enabled check box to enable the rule.
  5. Select the check boxes and radio buttons and enter the match criteria for AppDynamics to use to name network requests.
  6. Click OK.

You can temporarily cancel the application of an exclude rule by clearing the Enabled checkbox in the exclude rule configuration. To remove the rule permanently, select the exclude rule in the Exclude Rules list and click the Delete icon.

Change Priority of Rules

Rules are evaluated in the order that they appear in the include or exclude list. You can change the priority of the rules by dragging and dropping rules towards the top (higher priority) or towards the bottom of the list (lower priority). Custom rules are always evaluated before the default naming rule, beginning with the custom rule that has the highest priority.