How to create device groups

Group end-users based on their devices, operating systems, or browsers with information provided by the User-Agent HTTP request header. By using Device Groups to categorize requests, you can make your application more responsive.

With this guide, you’ll create and activate a new device group to identify mobile devices that access your application.


  1. Access Azion Console > Edge Application.
  2. Click the edge application to which you want to create a new device group.
  3. Select the Device Groups tab.
  4. Click the + Device Group button.
  5. Name your device group. The name of your device group can’t contain spaces and must have only alphanumeric characters. For example: Mobile.
  6. In the Match to User-Agent field, specify a regular expression that will meet the desired criteria. For example: (Mobile|iPhone|Android).
  7. Click the Save button.

Now that your device group is set, you can use Rules Engine to determine what action must be taken if the expression is matched to a User-Agent header. In this case, a custom Device-Is header will be received in the response:

  1. Navigate to the Rules Engine tab.
  2. Click + Rule.
  3. Give your rule a name. For example: Device Group: Mobile.
  4. Select Response Phase.
  5. In the Criteria section, select the variable ${device_group}.
  6. Select the operator is equal.
  7. Add the name of the device group as configured in the previous instructions. For example: Mobile.
  8. In the Behavior section, select the behavior Add Response Header.
  9. As an argument, add Device-Is: Mobile device.
  10. Click the Save button.
  11. Wait a few minutes for the changes to propagate through the edge.

If your current browser sends a User-Agent header similar to the example, you can test whether the request went through by accessing your application from a mobile device or artificially adding the header and its value to the request using the following command:

Terminal window
curl -I https://xxxxxxxxxx.map.azionedge.net/ -H "User-Agent: iPhone Android"

You should receive a list of headers including the custom header added by the rule: device-is: Mobile device. Now that you’ve verified that the devices are being correctly categorized, you can customize the desired behavior using the same rule.


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