Need some advice

Ok, dont know if this would be a presale question or what. I already own one server with Interworx.

I am planning to get two more servers next month and cluster them together and run Interworx. This is going into new graounds for me.

Would ther be any thing you would advise me to do or set up to maximzie the two servers?

What would be a optimum server set up or equipment with Siteworx? Thanks for any and all feedback.

I would suggest the cluster manager be at least a midrange box (p4, signle xeon) with sata/scsi drives, and the 2nd box can be the same but no need for sata/scsi. The reason I say that is the files will still be hosted on the main box. If you need any help, let me know as I have had experience with this before. (Interworx guys, let me know if that is “selling” to much on your forums :wink: )

Thanks,
Clint

For me the cluster manager act only as a router, but with the interworx-cp solutions also acts as a Data Base manager and as the share storage for all others nodes (nfs), so I agree that a midrange server should be necessary with the ability to add new disks.

I’m not sure that beginning with only 2 boxes is a good thing, as it will not have Load Balancing, so…

Pascal

Clint, and Pascal, I appreciate your feedback! Good info.

I’m not sure that beginning with only 2 boxes is a good thing, as it will not have Load Balancing, so…
:confused:

OK, I am confused now (not hard for a old fart like me).

Wouldn’t two servers be the minimum for load balancing? Or like you say the “main” box is acting as a “router” and the load balancing is being done only with the other box’s? If my last question is true, would it be advisable to host web sites on the “main” box?

And last question, what would be the minimum number of servers for load balancing to work correctly (efficiently)?

Guys, thanks for your replies, hopefully this thread will help others with same question as well.

Well, the best things would be that an interworx member explain exactly how their Cluster solution works.

From my point of view :
They use LVS.
LVS is a virtual server. That means all the clients see only 1 IP (by services).
In fact there is a director (called cluster manager by interworx) that does the loadbalancing, then route the requests to one realserver : The client send a request to the LVS IP on a specific port (say 80), the director receive this request, look at this routage table, do loadbalancing and route the request to a realserver on the same port.

Normaly the director is not itself a realserver. So if you have only 2 boxes, one director and one realserver, it isn’t possible to have loadbalancing.

But It is possible to have the director acting as a realserver (called localnode). In this last case 2 boxes are suffisant to do Load Balancing (each boxes act as a director and a realserver, like ultramomkey).
I think the Interworx cluster solution works like this (to be confirmed by an interworx member)

But I’m also a little confused.

My problem is about what services are LoadBalanced. All ? (ssh, ftp, imap, pop, http, https, …)

Indeed, in the Interworx cluster doc, they said that you may choose to give to your client the IP you want.

Ok, but in this case, if you don’t give the IP of the LVS, the request of a client will be route directly to the realserver without go trhough the cluster manager, so the request wont be Load Balanced.

The other point is about SSL certificates on dedicated IP. If the dedicated IP is not the LVS IP, so does it means that all requests to this website also won’t be load balanced ?

I’m sure an interworx member may easily answer to these points. And sorry if I completly wrong and confused you (and me)

Pascal

Pascal, thanks for the info and you bring up some good questions.

My problem is about what services are LoadBalanced. All ? (ssh, ftp, imap, pop, http, https, …)

You have a choice of what you setup to be load balanced. The system allows for http/pop3/imap/smtp/https with more options to be allowed later.

Indeed, in the Interworx cluster doc, they said that you may choose to give to your client the IP you want.

Ok, but in this case, if you don’t give the IP of the LVS, the request of a client will be route directly to the realserver without go trhough the cluster manager, so the request wont be Load Balanced.

Any IP on the cluster manager can be load balanced. The cluster manager will map every IP you mark as “clusterable” to each node in the cluster. You may load balance shared or dedicated IPs.

The other point is about SSL certificates on dedicated IP. If the dedicated IP is not the LVS IP, so does it means that all requests to this website also won’t be load balanced ?

No, if you setup a dedicated IP and mark it as clusterable then that dedicated IP will be applied to nodes and load balanced over those nodes.

I also wanted to add, you can create a 2 node cluster as pascal described.

Chris

Thanks a ton Chris :slight_smile:

I completly missed up that you can define differents IP per service in LVS.

Like this ?? :
ipvsadm -a -t 65.110.10.10:23 -r 127.0.0.1
ipvsadm -a -t 65.110.10.10:23 -r 65.110.10.20 -g
ipvsadm -a -t 65.110.10.10:23 -r 65.110.10.30 -g

Ok so the Interworx cluster solution seems to be great and I definitly have to test it.

Thanks for your job and let me wish you an happy new year

Pascal

Yep, and here’s a sample from a working cluster (ipvsadm lines generated by iworx-cp):


ipvsadm -A -t 66.118.190.8:80 -s lc -p 1800
ipvsadm -a -t 66.118.190.8:80 -r 10.0.0.23:80 -g -w 1
ipvsadm -a -t 66.118.190.8:80 -r 10.0.0.22:80 -g -w 1
ipvsadm -a -t 66.118.190.8:80 -r 10.0.0.21:80 -g -w 1
[/quote]

Chris

Chris[/QUOTE]
does clustering IWorx need knowledge with LVS or those commands are IWorx specific?

You don’t need any knowledge of LVS Bashar, iworx-cp will handle all the ipvsadm commands for you.

Chirs