Mailing List Archive: preferred VIFS

Hi,

I have a setup where four machines are sharing 12 VIFS. Ideally, I'd like
to specify three preferred VIFS on each machine - to help with load
balancing. Can I do that?

I have 12 IP addresses handling IMAP proxy servers, and 16 handling smtp
and DNS services. It's essential that the IMAP services are reasonably
distributed, so I've built 12 VIFS with one IMAP address in each.

If I can only specify one VIF per host, then I'd have to load that up with
all the smtp and dns services to ensure the best load share under normal
conditions. However, that would mean all my ancilliary services failed onto
a single host, which isn't so clever. That, or I'd have to think harder
about my load conditions.

--
Ian Eiloart
IT Services, University of Sussex

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On Jun 29, 2006, at 6:10 PM, Ian Eiloart wrote:
> I have a setup where four machines are sharing 12 VIFS. Ideally,
> I'd like to specify three preferred VIFS on each machine - to help
> with load balancing. Can I do that?
>
> I have 12 IP addresses handling IMAP proxy servers, and 16 handling
> smtp and DNS services. It's essential that the IMAP services are
> reasonably distributed, so I've built 12 VIFS with one IMAP address
> in each.
>
> If I can only specify one VIF per host, then I'd have to load that
> up with all the smtp and dns services to ensure the best load share
> under normal conditions. However, that would mean all my ancilliary
> services failed onto a single host, which isn't so clever. That, or
> I'd have to think harder about my load conditions.

I don't believe that the preference stuff in wackamole is capable of
accomplishing what you want. I haven't looked at the code in a long
time, but I'd imagine it would not be a major change to the
algorithms in place, but it would be much more than a few-line patch
to make it safe.

// Theo Schlossnagle
// CTO -- http://www.omniti.com/~jesus/
// OmniTI Computer Consulting, Inc. -- http://www.omniti.com/
// Ecelerity: Run with it.