From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jan 31 22:27:18 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 68DDC16A4CE for ; Mon, 31 Jan 2005 22:27:18 +0000 (GMT) Received: from stewie.obfuscated.net (stewie.obfuscated.net [66.118.188.125]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1734C43D41 for ; Mon, 31 Jan 2005 22:27:18 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from m@obmail.net) Received: from [192.168.1.100] (653259hfc120.tampabay.rr.com [65.32.59.120]) (using TLSv1 with cipher RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by stewie.obfuscated.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4EEBD60DF; Mon, 31 Jan 2005 17:27:17 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v619.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Message-Id: <8919e0a90e6eab39103956a670200da1@obmail.net> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Michael Conlen Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 17:26:35 -0500 To: Nick Pavlica X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.619.2) cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Load Balanceing Recommendations X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 22:27:18 -0000 On Jan 31, 2005, at 5:11 PM, Nick Pavlica wrote: > All, > I have been searching for a load balancing tool/method for managing > the traffic going to my web servers(http(s)). I have found a number > of tools/methods out there, but haven't found any that stand out as > the "Common Solution" to this task on FreeBSD (I may be overlooking > the obvious :)). I'm currently testing on FreeBSD 4.11 and 5.3 on > x86. > > - What method/tool do you use or recommend based on your production > experience? I've used two methods that have worked well. One is to use a FreeBSD or OpenBSD as a router and use PF to do the load balancing. The downside with this method is that it doesn't sense when a server is down and remove it from the pool of servers. I also haven't done weighted load balancing with this method so I can't evaluate it. The second method I've used is using a Foundry switch with a load balancer built in to it. This is nice when 1) you don't want to use a FreeBSD or OpenBSD system as a router and 2) you want it to do health checks to remove a down system from the pool automatically. It works really well, the downside being the cost. -- Michael Conlen