Apache Load Balancer Configuration

1. Configuring Apache2 Load Balancer with failover

node01
Messaging Part 1 Instance 1 for
e.g.: 192.168.0.140

192.168.0.2

node02
Messaging Part 1 Instance 2 for
e.g.: 192.168.0.90

Configuring a High Availability Cluster (Heartbeat) On CentOS:

This guide shows how you can set up a two node, high-availability HTTP cluster with heartbeat
on CentOS. Both nodes use the Apache web server to serve the same content.

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Pre-Configuration Requirements

1) Assign hostname node01 to primary node with IP address Messaging Part1 Server
Instance 1 (For e.g.:192.168.0.90) to eth0.
2) Assign hostname node02 to slave node with IP address Messaging Part1 Server Instance 2
(For e.g.:192.168.0.140).

Note: on node01

uname -n

must return node01.

On node02

uname -n

must return node02.

192.168.0. 2 is the virtual IP address that will be used for our Apache web-server (i.e.,
Apache will listen on that address).

Configuration

1) Download and install the heartbeat package. In our case we are using CentOS so we will
install heartbeat with yum:

yum install heartbeat

2) Now we have to configure heartbeat on our two node cluster. We will deal with three
files. These are:

authkeys
ha.cf
haresources

3) Now moving to our configuration. But there is one more thing to do that is to copy these
files to the /etc/ha.d directory. In our case we copy these files as given below:

cp /usr/share/doc/heartbeat-2.1.2/authkeys /etc/ha.d/
cp /usr/share/doc/heartbeat-2.1.2/ha.cf /etc/ha.d/
cp /usr/share/doc/heartbeat-2.1.2/haresources /etc/ha.d/

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4) Now let's start configuring heartbeat. First we will deal with the authkeys file, we will use
authentication method 2 (sha1). For this we will make changes in the authkeys file as
below.

vi /etc/ha.d/authkeys

Then add the following lines:

auth 2

2 sha1 test-ha

Change the permission of the authkeys file:

chmod 600 /etc/ha.d/authkeys

5) Moving to our second file (ha.cf) which is the most important. So edit the ha.cf file with
vi:

vi /etc/ha.d/ha.cf

Add the following lines in the ha.cf file:

logfile /var/log/ha-log

logfacility local0

keepalive 2

deadtime 30

initdead 120

bcast eth0

udpport 694

auto_failback on

node node01

node node02

Note: node01 and node02 is the output generated by

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uname -n

6) The final piece of work in our configuration is to edit the haresources file. This file
contains the information about resources which we want to highly enable. In our case we
want the webserver (httpd) highly available:

vi /etc/ha.d/haresources

Add the following line:

node01 192.168.0.2 httpd

7) Copy the /etc/ha.d/ directory from node01 to node02:

scp -r /etc/ha.d/ root@node02:/etc/

8) As we want httpd highly enabled let's start configuring httpd:

vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Add this line in httpd.conf:

Listen 192.168.0.2:80

9) Copy the /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file to node02:

scp /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf root@node02:/etc/httpd/conf/

10) Create the file index.html on both nodes (node01 & node02):

On node01:

echo "node01 apache test server" > /var/www/html/index.html

On node02:

echo "node02 apache test server" > /var/www/html/index.html

11) Now start heartbeat on the primary node01 and slave node02:

/etc/init.d/heartbeat start

12) Open web-browser and type in the URL:

http://192.168.0.2

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It will show node01 apache test server.

13) Now stop the hearbeat daemon on node01:

/etc/init.d/heartbeat stop

In your browser type in the URL http://192.168.0.2 and press enter.

It will show node02 apache test server.

14) We don't need to create a virtual network interface and assign an IP address (192.168.0.2)
to it. Heartbeat will do this for you, and start the service (httpd) itself. So don't worry
about this.

Don't use the IP addresses of Messaging Part1 Server Instance 1 and Instance 2 for
services. These addresses are used by heartbeat for communication between node01 and
node02. When any of them will be used for services/resources, it will disturb heartbeat
and will not work. Be careful!!!

Installing Apache2

1) Apache2 is available as a CentOS package; therefore we can install it like this:

yum install httpd

The package httpd has some dependencies. So please install the below packages through
DVD1 before httpd package installation.

Insert DVD1-> Goto folder CentOS_5.5 -> CentOS and install packages by using below
command

rpm -ivh apr-1.2.7-11.el5_3.1.x86_64.rpm

and regarding the postgresql-libs package we need exactly the below mentioned version
which is available from packages list of DVD1 only.

rpm -ivh postgresql-libs-8.1.18-2.el5_4.1

If the postgresql-libs-8.3.3-1PGDG.rhel5.x86_64.rpm is already installed separately from

rpm -e postgresql-libs-8.3.3-1PGDG.rhel5.x86_64.rpm

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and run the below command

rpm -e --nodeps postgresql-libs

and then install httpd package from the DVD1 only

rpm -ivh httpd-2.2.3-43.el5.centos.x86_64.rpm

Note: For Load Balancer configuration there is no need to install Postgresql server from
the packages provided in DVD4.

Start Apache:

/etc/init.d/httpd start

2) To configure apache2 as load balancer we will use mod_jk module.

If the httpd-devel tools are not installed, install them first:

sudo yum -y install httpd-devel

b) Copy module binary mod_jk.so from SSDG DVD 4 to /etc/httpd/modules

Add following lines to httpd.conf in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

#==================LoadBalancer================

# Load mod_jk module

# Update this path to match your modules location

LoadModule jk_module /etc/httpd/modules/mod_jk.so

# Declare the module for <IfModule directive> (remove this line on Apache 2.x)

# AddModule mod_jk.c

# Where to find workers.properties

# Update this path to match your conf directory location (put workers.properties
next to httpd.conf)

JkWorkersFile conf/workers.properties

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# Where to put jk shared memory

# Update this path to match your local state directory or logs directory

JkShmFile /var/log/httpd/mod_jk.shm

# Where to put jk logs

# Update this path to match your logs directory location (put mod_jk.log next to
access_log)

JkLogFile /var/log/httpd/mod_jk.log

# Set the jk log level [debug/error/info]

JkLogLevel info

# Select the timestamp log format

JkLogStampFormat "[%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y] "

#==============================================

<VirtualHost 192.168.0.2:80>

ServerAdmin (Email address of Administrator For eg :[email protected])

ServerName (Domain name for SSDG Messaging Service For eg:

ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/error.log

ProxyRequests Off

ProxyVia Off

JkMount /* loadbalancer1

</VirtualHost>

3) workers.properties.

# Define list of workers that will be used

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# for mapping requests

# Define Node1
# modify the host as your host IP or DNS name.
worker.node1.port=8009
worker.node1.host=IP Address of Messaging Part 1 Server Instance 1 For
eg:192.168.0.140
worker.node1.type=ajp13
worker.node1.lbfactor=1
worker.node1.redirect=node2

# Load-balancing behaviour
#For ex1.cdacmumbai.in
worker.loadbalancer1.type=lb
worker.loadbalancer1.balance_workers=node1,node2
worker.loadbalancer1.sticky_session=1

# Define Node2
# modify the host as your host IP or DNS name.
worker.node2.port=8009
worker.node2.host= IP Address of Messaging Part 1 Server Instance 2 For
eg:192.168.0.90
worker.node2.type=ajp13
worker.node2.lbfactor=10
worker.node2.cachesize=10
#worker.node2.redirect=node3

#Status worker for managing load balancer

4) In above workers.properties
worker.node1.host
& worker.node2.host point to the machine where gateway services are running i.e.
IP Address of Messaging Part 1 Server Instance 1 and Instance 2 .
worker.node1.port & worker.node2.port must point to the AJP port of jboss @ssdg
(default is 8009).

5) Restart apache2 with

/etc/init.d/httpd restart

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