Re: newbie questions

>

> Hi Grant,
>
> On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 09:17:32PM +1000, Grant Maxwell wrote:
>> Hi Folks
>>
>> I'm running an email environment and want to implement a HA/load
>> balancing solution. I was looking at a low end solution, pen, which
>> at
>> first glance looked promising. It fell over for me because the mail
>> server sees the connection as coming from the Load Balance (LB)
>> server, rather than the original client. That seemed to be the only
>> problem, understanding the limitations of pen product.
>
> This is a common problem to all proxy-based LBs.
>
>> So, on the hunt again I found haproxy. I've been looking at it but
>> can't definitively determine if it will do what I want and therefore
>> thought I would put it to you wise and knowledgeable folk.
>>
>> So
>>
>> My current arrangement is simple. Two mail servers behind one
>> firewall. Each mail server is mapped to a public ip address. What I
>> want to achieve is a single ip address mapped to a load balance
>> server, which distributes connections to X mail servers with HA and
>> LB
>> functionality.
>>
>> All these servers are on one site & one subnet.
>>
>> I have a secondary site and would like to replicate the entire
>> configuration at the second site.
>>
>> A critical property is that the original connecting client ip address
>> must be presented to the mail server as the connecting address.
>>
>> The only protocol in use is SMTP.
>>
>> Is HAPROXY the right place to be?
>
> You can make it work in transparent mode if you patch your kernel
> for that.
> Thus, it will present the client's IP address to the server.
> However, for
> what you're trying to achieve, why don't you simply set up LVS on your
> firewalls, using source-hash as the LB algorithm ? It would do exactly
> what you're looking for : a given IP always to the same server, and no
> undesired IP translation.
>
> regards,
> Willy
>
> Hey thanks Willy. You hit the nail right on the head.
>
> kind regards
> Grant
Received on 2008/06/27 13:12