Topic: Best way to cluster Apache 2.2.2?

[ron]

What is the recommended/best way to cluster Apache 2.2.2 in an active/active (load balancing and failover) or active/standby (failover) configuration on Windows Server 2003?

[Steffen]

Did you looked at mod_proxy_balancer : http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_proxy_balancer.html ?

It is stated there:

The worker is a member of the load balancer, usually a remote host serving one of the supported protocols.

If some workers are disabled, the others will still be scheduled correctly,

Steffen

[ron]

Thanks for your quick reply!

I looked at mod_proxy_balancer and from what I can tell it performs the same function as mod_jk2. It distributes load from an Apache server to a set of application servers such as JBoss.

I want a configuration where I have two Apache servers (Apache1 and Apache2). If Apache1 goes down, requests will stop going to Apache1 and Apache2 will automatically take on the entire load. I am trying to eliminate any single points of failure.

I don't believe mod_proxy_balancer will accomplish this task.

[Steffen]

What you want is a automatically failover. That looks not easy to me if you have eg. databases , you have to synchronize.

I run a mail server (Surgemail) that mirror's all mail to an other sytem. Surgemail mirrorring allows me to have a continuosly updated live replicate server with mail able to arrive on either server and be read from either server. Failover can be router based or using manual switching of a floating IP address in the event of catastrophic failure of the primary server.


I never looked in to Apache failover. I shall look to it, when I find some I shall inform you.

Maybe someone else has an idea ?


Steffen

[Jorge]

Well How i see it is:

Apache1 - Apache2

Backend:

MySQL
FileServer

Apache one get databases and files from the back hand and serves them if it does the DNS rediect is initioated to Apache2 withc then takes over.

That looks like what you are looking for.

[ron]

[Jorge]

I had to make a workout a simular plan today:

This is what was choosen:

We'll have a small older server connected to the internet...

It actes as a firewall and blocks everything. accept 80, 81 and 443
On there runs a minimal Apache 2.2 with mod_proxy that forwards to
2 backend servers...
Server 1 will get all dynamic content (php, asp.net, mod_perl, ssi)
Server 2 will get all regular requests

Server 1 has more ram and CPU power than server 2 since #2 will do static only... if Server 1 should die... Server 2 can take over but will come at a small preformance penalty... same for the other way around... with less of an preformance impackts.

Server 3 will host MySQL and the data... Serve 3 will be using RAID 5, and will only accept mysql from the local network 10.0.x.x file are transfured via a NFS Server.

Server 3 will also make nightly backups of the data onto and external WD hdd... that will be swaped out every week... there will be 4 of them.

Also in case of the front end server failing... we can reconfiger the router to push all traffic to Server 1 till the problem is fixed.

This is a quite expensive solution... but will probebly work for you aswel

[oblius]