[ 1Beta4: Load balancing ] - type of monitoring - web applications

r0n · May 10, 2006, 3:55 PM

Hello all,

Is there any plan to add other type of monitoring (not icmp or tcp monitoring) for the web banlancing ?
For exemple, a good load balancer for Web servers can monitor regular expressions returned by a specifi url.

http://server2/PATH/test.jsp must return the expression (string) "Server OK", or "Database OK", or "results founds" anything else, to be active.
So we can test the availability of all the web platforme (for exemle, HTTP + JSP + Database) before redirect traffic to the server, and not only the port 80/TCP.

If there is only TCP monitoring, the traffic can be redirect to a web server, with a HTTP Ok, but a JSP crashed, or other.

Monitoring HTTP Error Codes, like Err 500, or 404 is important.

At time it is not possible to use the loadbalancer in a production environement for these reasons.

Best Regards,
Ronan.

billm · May 10, 2006, 9:24 PM

@r0n:

Hello all,

Is there any plan to add other type of monitoring (not icmp or tcp monitoring) for the web banlancing ?
For exemple, a good load balancer for Web servers can monitor regular expressions returned by a specifi url.

Yes, there are plans.

@r0n:

http://server2/PATH/test.jsp must return the expression (string) "Server OK", or "Database OK", or "results founds" anything else, to be active.
So we can test the availability of all the web platforme (for exemle, HTTP + JSP + Database) before redirect traffic to the server, and not only the port 80/TCP.

If there is only TCP monitoring, the traffic can be redirect to a web server, with a HTTP Ok, but a JSP crashed, or other.

Monitoring HTTP Error Codes, like Err 500, or 404 is important.

At time it is not possible to use the loadbalancer in a production environement for these reasons.

I disagree - this is not a fact, it's an opinion. The current code came from a bounty that I fullfilled that filled the need of the requestor. The load balance code we chose can do more than the features we enabled, anyone willing to put the time into making this work is welcome to.

–Bill

r0n · May 11, 2006, 8:53 AM

Hi,

So, great, i hope it will be implemented soon :) i am ready to test it !
Is there a time line or are you waiting another bounty, or code helper(time helper?).

By the way, you are right, the actual load balancer is perfect for particular use,
for another (like web loadbalacing in a complex web plateform), it is not, for the moment, adapted.

Thanks to the pfsense crew for the work =) pfsense rocks

regards,
ronan.

hoba · May 11, 2006, 8:58 AM

I would say any of your suggestions is welcome (bounty, code, time) ;)

billm · May 11, 2006, 1:35 PM

@r0n:

Hi,
So, great, i hope it will be implemented soon :) i am ready to test it !
Is there a time line or are you waiting another bounty, or code helper(time helper?).

Mainly time. My list of projects I want to work on is a mile long. This is definitely on it, but I'm working on rewriting the parser for the load balancing daemon we use (slb) as the current one kinda sucks. I don't have a firm date for this feature - at this time it's more of a, when I've got some of my other interesting stuff done, I'll circle back around to the load balancer as there's a few features I want to add (tcp/http layer 7 monitoring, better load balance methods, and one or two other things that might be nice) Sometimes users helping set direction with bounties or contracts such as the one that got slb in pfSense in the first place can be a good thing.

–Bill

PS. I'd do just about anything for a MacBook Pro ;-PPPPPPPPP Kidding (sorta).

PPS. Anyone with yacc/lex skills, I'd love to hear from you.