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Date:      Mon, 28 Jun 1999 14:14:32 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Joseph Scott <joseph@randomnetworks.com>
To:        president@flyingcroc.com
Cc:        questions@FreeBSD.ORG, systems@flyingcroc.com
Subject:   Re: Load balancing DNS boxes...
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.05.9906281405520.13104-100000@unix1.digital-web.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9906241754350.2733-100000@gilliam.flyingcroc.com>

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On Thu, 24 Jun 1999, Andrew N. Edmond (Nero) wrote:
> Thanks for reading along.... :)
> 
> We have a large FreeBSD server farm... around 160 boxes, pushing about 400
> megabits/second.  We also have ONE dns server pushing TWO megabits of DNS
> requests per second :)

	Wow, very cool!

> 
> The way DNS works for windows boxes (our primary clients connecting to our
> network) is that when InterNic reports to the users DNS server the IP
> address they are resolving, most times they only try connecting to
> NS1.FLYINGCROC.COM.  If this server is down, the time is takes to go look
> at NS2.FLYINGCROC.COM can take sometimes up to 30 seconds.

	I'm no expert, but secondary dns doesn't really cut in that
situation I think.  It probably only really shines in mail transport,
looking up mx records and such.

> 
> Hence, the InterNic method of primary and secondary name service is not
> acceptable for our network.  We need to load balance and set redundancy
> locally.
> 
> So, if we wanted three servers with identical bind-8 configurations
> running and setting up these servers in round robin or some other load
> balancing mechanism, what is the best method?

	I've never actually done this per se, however I would imagine that
you would want something like Alteon ACEdirector, where you would able to
load balance at the ip level.  However that may be overkill for what you
are trying to do.  You may want to look at Eddie ( www.eddieware.org ),
it's an open source software package ( runs on FreeBSD as well as others )
that basically allows you to do the same thing, for DNS and HTTP.

	I've never actually used either of these products, so I can't say
one way or other how well they will actually perform.  I suppose if you
have money the Alteon may be the way to go ( I think they ran over $30k ),
but in my gut I'd say try the Eddie software first.

	There are most likely other products that will do what you are
after, the two above are the ones that stick out in my mind.

> 
> We use bind itself to delegate requests in round robin to webservers
> themselves, but this solution doesn't work for the DNS server when the IP
> is hardcoded into the InterNic record itself!
> 
> Suggestions on setting up three DNS servers in a load balancing system
> with a network appliance would be appreciated!  We've looked at Local
> Director and it doesn't look like this solution is quite practical.
> Anyone else have any success?
> 
> .. andy
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Andrew N. Edmond               F L Y I N G         Chief Executive Officer
> president@flyingcroc.com    C R O C O D I L E    http://www.flyingcroc.com
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
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Joseph Scott
joseph@randomnetworks.com




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