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Coyote Point Systems Equalizer Installation And Administration Manual

High-performance load-balancing appliance
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Equalizer
Installation and
Administration Guide
Version 7.0
September 2003
Coyote Point Systems, Inc.
12 South First Street
Suite 616
San Jose, California 95113

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Summary of Contents for Coyote Point Systems Equalizer

  • Page 1 Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide Version 7.0 September 2003 Coyote Point Systems, Inc. 12 South First Street Suite 616 San Jose, California 95113...
  • Page 3 Copyright © 1997-2003 Coyote Point Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the USA. Equalizer is a trademark of Coyote Point Systems Incorporated. All other brand or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies or organizations.
  • Page 4 Coyote Point Systems, Inc.

  • Page 5: Table Of Contents

    Configuration Worksheet for Using Reserved IP Addresses ....18 2 Installing Equalizer ................19 Installing Equalizer ..................20 Setting up a Terminal or Terminal Emulator for Equalizer ......21 3 Configuring Equalizer ................. 23 Equalizer Configuration ................24 Configuring the Network Parameters ........... 25 Committing Changes to the Configuration Parameters .......
  • Page 6 Server Configuration ..................29 Failover Configuration ................30 Testing Your Configuration ................30 Equalizer Configuration Checklist ..............31 4 Administering Equalizer Operation............ 33 Introducing the Equalizer Administration Interface ........34 Accessing the Administration Interface ............35 Logging In ....................35 Navigating Through the Interface ............36 Monitoring Equalizer Operation ..............37 Displaying Equalizer Information ............38...
  • Page 7 Backing Up Your Configuration ............57 Restoring a Saved Configuration ............58 Shutting Down Equalizer ................59 5 Administering Virtual Clusters ............61 Working with Virtual Clusters ..............62 Adding a Virtual Cluster ............... 62 Configuring a Cluster’s Load-Balancing Options ......... 64 Providing FTP Services on a Virtual Cluster ........
  • Page 8 Clients time out while trying to contact a virtual cluster ......96 Can’t view Equalizer administration pages ..........96 Equalizer administration page takes a long time to display .......97 Equalizer doesn’t respond to pings to the admin address ......97 Browser hangs when trying to connect via FTP to an FTP cluster ....97 A Using Server Agents................

  • Page 9: Preface

    A glossary of the technology-specific terms used throughout this book follows Appendix F. If you are setting up Equalizer for the first time, you should read the Overview chapter before attempting to install and configure your system. Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...
  • Page 10 Note – Notes are used to highlight important information and special considerations. Caution – Caution notes are used to warn when an action could result in loss of data or damage to your equipment. Information critical to Equalizer operation is highlighted with an attention icon. Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 11: Overview

    Overview Introducing Equalizer Layer 7 Load Balancing Geographic Load Balancing Equalizer Network Configurations Equalizer Configuration Worksheet Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 12: Introducing Equalizer

    Intelligent Load Balancing Equalizer functions as a gateway to one or more sets of servers known as virtual clusters. When a client submits a request to an Equalizer-managed site, Equalizer identifies the virtual cluster that the request is intended for, determines which server in the cluster will be best able to handle the request, and forwards the request to that server for processing.
  • Page 13 Equalizer’s Active Content Verification (ACV) provides a way to check the validity of a server. When ACV is enabled for a cluster, Equalizer requests data from each server in the cluster and verifies the returned data. ACV can be used with most network services that support a text-based request/response protocol, such as HTTP.

  • Page 14: Load Balancing Udp Services

    This cookie uniquely identifies the server to which the client was connected and is included in subsequent requests from the client to the same cluster. Equalizer can use the information in the cookie to route the requests back to the same server.

  • Page 15: Layer 7 Load Balancing

    If no sticky record is found, Equalizer proceeds to check all of the other clusters that have the same IP address. If a sticky record is found, the user is connected to the server that it references.

  • Page 16: Geographic Load Balancing

    An Equalizer site is a cluster of servers under Equalizer control. A geographic cluster is a collection of sites that provide a common service, such as a web site. The different sites in a geographic cluster are often separated by large distances.
  • Page 17 For example, there might be three sites in the geographic cluster www.coyotepoint.com, one in the Eastern U.S., one in the Western U.S., and one in Europe. An Equalizer and a cluster of servers resides at each of these sites.
  • Page 18 Chapter 1:Overview The authoritative name server delegates the query to the Equalizer servers at each of the sites in the geographic cluster. (Step 3 in Figure 3.) If the site that’s queried doesn’t respond, the client’s name server tries one of the others. (In Figure 3 and Figure 4, site 2 is handling the name resolution request.)
  • Page 19 (Figure 5.) Envoy Site 3: Europe Client in California nternet Envoy Site 1: USA West Envoy Site 2: USA East Figure 5 Selecting a site to process the connection request Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 20: Real-Time Monitoring

    IP addresses and ports. Equalizer's NAT subsystem translates client request packets and then forwards them to the selected server. When a server machine sends a response packet back to a client, it is processed by Equalizer and then forwarded to the appropriate client across the external network.

  • Page 21: Using Ip Aliases

    Equalizer Network Configurations Equalizer can be used in a number of different configurations. Before you install Equalizer, you need to determine where it will fit into your network and how it will be configured. This section describes some of the different configuration choices that you have and provides a configuration worksheet to help you plan your configuration.

  • Page 22: Using Equalizer In A Single Network Environment

    Figure 7 Two-network configuration Using Equalizer in a Single Network Environment If you do not want to split your network into internal and external networks, Equalizer can be configured to use a single network interface, effectively placing both the clients and servers on the same network.

  • Page 23: Using A Second Equalizer As A Backup Unit

    Using a Second Equalizer as a Backup Unit You can configure a second Equalizer as a backup unit that will take over in case of failure. This is referred to as a hot-backup configuration. The two Equalizers, a primary unit and a backup unit, are referred to as siblings.

  • Page 24: Using Reserved Ip Addresses

    Chapter 1:Overview Should either Equalizer fail to respond to a status message probe, the survivor begins a diagnostic cycle. As part of the diagnostic cycle, the survivor attempts to contact its sibling via the other network interfaces. If these attempts fail, the sibling is considered to be down.
  • Page 25 Internet for any reason (such as performing DNS resolution or sending email), you need to configure Equalizer to perform outbound NAT (network address translation). When outbound NAT is enabled, Equalizer translates connections originating from the servers on the reserved network so that external hosts won’t see packets originating from non- routable addresses.

  • Page 26: Equalizer Configuration Worksheet

    Equalizer.) What is your physical network layout? Are you going to have a single network on which all of your servers, Equalizer, and your Internet router reside? Or are you going use a two-network configuration and split your network into multiple subnets? If you use two-network configuration, Equalizer will function as the gateway between them and must be connected to both.
  • Page 27 21. What is the address of your internet router on the external network? Equalizer will use this gateway when transmitting packets to hosts that aren’t on the internal or external networks. What is the IP address of the name server that Equalizer will use? If a name server is configured, Equalizer displays virtual cluster and server addresses by name rather than IP address.

  • Page 28: Configuration Worksheet For Using Reserved Ip Addresses

    What is the “reserved” network to be used for the internal network? Equalizer uses this set of address to balance the load across the servers. (Equalizer uses the internal network to forward connections to the HTTP daemons running on the servers.)

  • Page 29: Installing Equalizer

    Installing Equalizer Installing Equalizer Setting up a Terminal or Terminal Emulator for Equalizer Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 30: Installing Equalizer

    Chapter 2:Installing Equalizer Installing Equalizer The first step in setting up Equalizer is to connect it to the local area network and a power source. Once Equalizer is installed, you need to configure it as described in Chapter 3, “Configuring Equalizer”.

  • Page 31: Setting Up A Terminal Or Terminal Emulator For Equalizer

    9. If necessary, resize the HyperTerminal window so that at least 80 x 24 characters can be viewed at once. Note: In some versions of HyperTerminal, graphics characters are not displayed properly. This will not affect the operation of the Equalizer Configuration Utility, but the borders may contain random characters. Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...
  • Page 32 Chapter 2:Installing Equalizer Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 33: Configuring Equalizer

    Configuring Equalizer Equalizer Configuration Geographic Load Balancing Configuration Server Configuration Failover Configuration Testing Your Configuration Equalizer Configuration Checklist Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 34: Equalizer Configuration

    Configuring the servers on your network to use Equalizer Testing the configuration to verify that the system is working properly As Equalizer boots, the terminal displays a series of device probe and startup messages. These diagnostic messages can normally be ignored. If the terminal emulation software is not configured to ignore hang-ups, the terminal session might exit twice during the boot process.

  • Page 35: Configuring The Network Parameters

    CANCEL +--------------+------+------------+----------+----------------+ Figure 14 Equalizer Configuration Utility: Network Configuration In the Host field, enter the fully qualified name for the Equalizer on your network. For example, Equalizer.mynet.com. Use the Tab key to move between fields in this dialog. Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 36: Committing Changes To The Configuration Parameters

    11. Use the Tab key to highlight Back and press ENTER to go back to the main configuration menu. You must commit these changes and reboot Equalizer for the new settings to take effect. Committing Changes to the Configuration Parameters For the changes in the Interfaces panel to take effect, you must commit the changes to the networking parameters and reboot Equalizer.

  • Page 37: Setting The Date And Time

    The new password takes effect immediately. Upgrading Equalizer Software You can use the Equalizer configuration utility to install the latest Equalizer software from Coyote Point. To install an upgrade: In the Equalizer Configuration Menu window, select option 10, Upgrade, and press ENTER.

  • Page 38: Shutting Down Equalizer

    When the shutdown process completes, it’s safe to power off the system. Geographic Load Balancing Configuration If you are configuring Equalizer to use Envoy for geographic load balancing, you also need to configure your authoritative name server to delegate authority to the Envoy sites.

  • Page 39: Using Geographic Load Balancing With Firewalled Networks

    Equalizer sites and clients can exchange packets on UDP port 53. The firewall must allow traffic on this port to flow freely between an Equalizer server and any Internet clients so that clients trying to resolve hostnames via the Equalizer DNS server can exchange packets with Equalizer sites.

  • Page 40: Failover Configuration

    Failover Configuration A second Equalizer can be configured as a hot backup so that if the Equalizer that’s currently handling requests fails, the backup automatically takes over. The Equalizer that’s actively handling requests is the primary unit and the hot spare is the backup unit.

  • Page 41: Equalizer Configuration Checklist

    Equalizer Operation” for information about how to add clusters and servers.) When you telnet to a virtual cluster from the external test machine, Equalizer should connect you to one of the servers configured in the cluster. Repeatedly connect to the same virtual cluster to make sure that Equalizer is routing the connections to different servers in the cluster.
  • Page 42 Chapter 3:Configuring Equalizer Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 43: Administering Equalizer Operation

    Administering Equalizer Operation Introducing the Equalizer Administration Interface Accessing the Administration Interface Monitoring Equalizer Operation Configuring Equalizer Operation Shutting Down Equalizer Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 44: Introducing The Equalizer Administration Interface

    Chapter 4:Administering Equalizer Operation Introducing the Equalizer Administration Interface Equalizer has an html-based administration interface that you can use for routine monitoring and administrative tasks. Figure 18 Equalizer Administration Interface You can access the administration interface from a Javascript-enabled web browser to:...

  • Page 45: Accessing The Administration Interface

    The Equalizer Administration interface supports two user modes: View allows you to view Equalizer configuration and status information. For more information, see “Monitoring Equalizer Operation” on page 37. Edit allows you to view all of the Equalizer configuration and status information and modify the configuration. Logging In...

  • Page 46: Navigating Through The Interface

    Refer to the password sheet provided separately for the initial user name and password combinations for view and edit access. Note – If you have lost or forgotten the edit mode password, it can be set through the Equalizer Configuration Utility. See “Changing the Administration Interface Password” on page 27.

  • Page 47: Monitoring Equalizer Operation

    If you don’t see the menu items when you roll over the menu, wait for a second and try again. Monitoring Equalizer Operation The Equalizer Administration interface provides several monitoring mechanisms that allow you to view: Global configuration information and connection statistics for Equalizer...

  • Page 48: Displaying Equalizer Information

    Log into the Equalizer Administration interface with view or edit access. In the left frame, click the Equalizer entry at the top of the column. The Equalizer parameters and status information are displayed in the right frame. You can also display this information by selecting Global Parameters from the View menu in the main menu bar.

  • Page 49: Displaying The Cluster Summary

    Servers shown in green are currently active. Servers shown in yellow are configured as hot spares. Servers shown in red are down. Equalizer monitors the status of active servers by periodically probing the IP address and Port specified by the server endpoint. If these probes fail two consecutive times, it marks the server down and stops routing new requests to that server.

  • Page 50: Displaying The System Event Log

    For each server, the summary displays the following information: Weight—the server weights determine the relative proportion of connection requests that Equalizer will route to each server. If ALB is enabled, these weights are the current, dynamically adjusted values, not the static weights initially assigned by the administrator.

  • Page 51: Plotting Cluster Performance

    This display shows the selected load balancing policy, the load-balancing responsiveness setting, the persistence parameters, and the server agent parameters. For more information about how Equalizer uses these parameters, see “Adding a Virtual Cluster” on page 62. Plotting Cluster Performance The Plot Cluster feature enables you to view a graphical representation of the performance history for any cluster.

  • Page 52: Displaying Server Information

    To display a server’s parameters: Log into the Equalizer Administration interface with view or edit access. In the left frame, click the name of the server whose parameters you want to view. The Server Parameters are shown in the right frame.

  • Page 53: Plotting Server Performance

    The name of the server. The number of current connections to the server. The total number of connections the server has handled since Equalizer was started. The server’s dynamic weight. The static weight assigned to the server by the administrator.
  • Page 54 Note – If all of your servers have server agent values above 70, you probably have more traffic than your servers can handle efficiently. In this case, Equalizer can help by intelligently managing the overload, but the long-term solution is to upgrade the servers or add new ones.

  • Page 55: Displaying Geographic Cluster Information

    Geographic Clusters.” To view the cluster-wide parameters: Log into the Equalizer Administration interface with view or edit access. In the left frame, click the name of the geographic cluster whose parameters you want to view. The Geographic Cluster Parameters page is displayed in the right frame.

  • Page 56: Plotting Geographic Cluster Performance

    DNS TTL—the amount of time, in seconds, that a name server is allowed to cache the domain information. MX Exchanger—The fully qualified domain name that will be returned if Equalizer receives a “mail exchanger” request for this geographic cluster. The mail exchanger is the host responsible for handling email sent to users in the domain.
  • Page 57 Four values can be plotted for a cluster: Request Rate—the number of requests received for the cluster per minute. Active Requests— the number of requests that Equalizer is in the process of routing. Network Latency—the average triangulation time when at least one site was able to respond.

  • Page 58: Displaying Site Information

    Default Site—indicates whether or not this site is being used as the default site. Resource—the IP address and port of the resource being monitored for this site. Agent’s Address—the IP address of the Equalizer agent running on the site. Resource keepalive—The number of seconds between resource availability checks. If a resource fails its availability check, its site will not be returned to clients.

  • Page 59: Plotting Site Performance

    This represents all of the triangulation probes, whether or not this site was selected to process the request. Resource load—the load on the above resource as calculated by the Equalizer agent. The load incorporates data on resource response time, number of active requests, and load-balancing variables.

  • Page 60: Configuring Equalizer Operation

    Resource Load—the relative workload of this site during the period plotted. Figure 32 Viewing a site’s graphical history Configuring Equalizer Operation You can modify Equalizer’s configuration through the Equalizer Administration interface and: Set up a failover configuration with two Equalizers...

  • Page 61: Setting Up A Failover Configuration

    You can use a second Equalizer as a hot backup. Should the Equalizer that’s currently handling requests fail, the backup will automatically take over. To use a second Equalizer as a hot backup, you need to install the backup Equalizer so that its network interfaces correspond to the network interfaces of its sibling: The external interface of the backup unit must be plugged into the same hub or switch that the external interface of the primary unit is plugged into.

  • Page 62: Enabling Outbound Nat

    Note – If you are using a second Equalizer for failover, outbound NAT must be enabled on both Equalizers. To enable Equalizer to perform outbound NAT: Log into the Equalizer Administration interface with edit access.

  • Page 63: Enabling Passive Ftp Connections

    To enable passive FTP translation: Log into the Equalizer Administration interface with edit access. Select Configure TCP/IP Options from the Equalizer menu in the main menu bar. The Change Equalizer Parameters dialog is displayed in the right frame. By default, the TCP/IP tab is visible.

  • Page 64: Enabling Sticky Network Aggregation

    To enable sticky network aggregation: Log into the Equalizer Administration interface with edit access. Select Configure TCP/IP Options from the Equalizer menu in the main menu bar. The Change Equalizer Parameters dialog is displayed in the right frame. By default, the TCP/IP tab is visible.

  • Page 65: Configuring Custom Event Handling

    24 bits. In other words, all connections from the same class C network were routed the same server. Click the Set button. Note – The sticky network aggregation mask must be identically configured for each Equalizer in a redundant pair. Configuring Custom Event Handling You can configure Equalizer to perform certain actions when a server fails or other critical events occur.
  • Page 66 To specify a command to run: Log into the Equalizer Administration interface with edit access. Select Configure Events from the Equalizer menu in the main menu bar. The Change Equalizer Parameters dialog is displayed in the right frame. By default, the Events tab is visible.

  • Page 67: Changing The Administration Passwords

    To change the view or edit passwords: Log into the Equalizer Administration interface with edit access. Select Configure Change Passwords from the Equalizer menu in the main menu bar. The Change Equalizer Parameters dialog is displayed in the right frame. By default,...

  • Page 68: Restoring A Saved Configuration

    Restoring a Saved Configuration To restore a saved configuration: Log into the Equalizer Administration interface with edit access. Select Configure Backup/Restore Configuration from the Equalizer menu in the main menu bar. The Backup/Restore Equalizer Configuration dialog is displayed in the right frame.

  • Page 69: Shutting Down Equalizer

    In the confirmation dialog, click OK to confirm that you really want to shut down Equalizer. Click Cancel to abort the shutdown request. Clicking OK immediately initiates the shutdown cycle. After 30 seconds, it is safe to power down the Equalizer. Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...
  • Page 70 Chapter 4:Administering Equalizer Operation Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 71: Administering Virtual Clusters

    Administering Virtual Clusters Working with Virtual Clusters Working with Servers Specifying Layer 7 Rules Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 72: Working With Virtual Clusters

    FQDNs instead of IP addresses enables you to manage changes to the IP addresses through your locally administered DNS. However, if your local DNS is down when you start up your Equalizer, your clusters won’t be configured properly.
  • Page 73 The port used to contact the server agents. Use Server Agent Enable this option if you want Equalizer to use server agents to gather performance statistics from the servers in the cluster. (Server Agent daemons must be run on each server in the cluster if this option is enabled.) ACV Probe String The active content verification probe string.

  • Page 74: Configuring A Cluster's Load-Balancing Options

    Options Set for Layer 7 Clusters Enable Spoofing Enable this option if you want Equalizer to spoof the client IP address when routing a request to a server in a virtual cluster. If this option is not enabled, the server receiving the request will see the Equalizer’s address as the client address because the TCP connection to the client is terminated when the request is routed.
  • Page 75 The first incoming request is dispatched to the first server, the second to the second server, and so on. When the last server is reached, the cycle repeats. If Equalizer detects that a server in the cluster is DOWN, no requests are dispatched to that server.
  • Page 76 Dynamic Weight Spread—how far a server’s dynamic weight can vary from its static weight. The spread is expressed as a percentage. For example, if the spread is 40% and the server’s static weight is 100, Equalizer will not change the server’s dynamic weight to more than 140 or less than 60.
  • Page 77 After fine-tuning the static weights of each server in the cluster, you might discover that Equalizer is not adjusting the dynamic weights of the servers at all—the dynamic weights are very stable, even under heavy load. In this case, you might want to set the cluster’s load balancing responsiveness parameter to fast.

  • Page 78: Providing Ftp Services On A Virtual Cluster

    A server agent collects performance statistics from a server. If a cluster is configured to use server agents, Equalizer periodically contacts the server agent daemon running on each server and downloads the server performance statistics. Server agents can also be customized to report on server resource availability, enabling Equalizer to stop sending requests to a server if a database or other vital resource is unavailable.

  • Page 79: Enabling Persistent Sessions

    Equalizer can use the information in the cookie to route the requests back to the same server. If the server is unavailable, a different server is selected automatically.
  • Page 80 Figure 49 Enabling cookie based persistence Select the Enable Persistence checkbox. To have Equalizer insert a persistence cookie in the response even if the server is not already sending a cookie to the client, select the Always use Cookie checkbox. Unless this option is selected, Equalizer only inserts a persistence cookie if the server is already sending some other cookie to the client.
  • Page 81 Server srv1 Server srv2 To enable sticky connections: Log into the Equalizer Administration interface with edit access. In the left frame, click the name of the cluster you want to configure. The Cluster Parameters are displayed in the right frame.

  • Page 82: Using Active Content Verification

    Active Content Verification (ACV) is a mechanism for checking the validity of a server. When ACV is enabled for a cluster, Equalizer requests data from each server in the cluster and verifies that the returned data contains a character string that indicates that the data is valid.

  • Page 83: Installing A Certificate For An Https Cluster

    To support secure connections to an HTTPS cluster, you need to install a secure server certificate issued by a certificate authority (CA) such as VeriSign or Thawte. Equalizer supports server certificates issued by Trusted Root Certificate Authorities as well as certificates issued by Certificate Authorities that do not have their own Trusted Root CA certificates.
  • Page 84 Note – When you upload a composite certificate, your private key is stored on the Equalizer. Keep in mind that users with access to the Equalizer will potentially have access to your private key. An optional XCEL SSL accelerator card is available for the Equalizer that provides secure key storage as well as hardware-based SSL encryption and decryption.

  • Page 85: Deleting A Cluster

    Working with Servers dding a Server to a Cluster In general, you should configure your network topology so that Equalizer is the gateway for ALL of the traffic for its virtual clusters. Each server in a cluster uses Equalizer as the gateway for any response packets to clients that contacted the server through a virtual cluster address.

  • Page 86: Adjusting A Server's Static Weight

    Note – Equalizer performs all of the encryption and decryption for HTTPS clusters, so traffic between the Equalizer and the servers in an HTTPS cluster uses the HTTP protocol. When you add servers to an HTTPS cluster, you should configure them on port 80.
  • Page 87 100. Note – Equalizer stops dynamically adjusting server weights if the load on the cluster drops below a certain threshold. For example, if web traffic slows significantly at 4:00 AM PST, Equalizer won’t modify server weights until it picks up again.

  • Page 88: Shutting Down A Server Gracefully

    When a server’s static weight is set to zero, Equalizer will not send any new requests to that server. Connections that are already established continue to exist until the client and server application end them or they time out because they are idle.

  • Page 89: Deleting A Server

    Select the Quiesce Server checkbox. d. Click Set to save your changes. If the server belongs to an L4 cluster, simply set its weight to 0. This prevents Equalizer from routing new connections to the server. Wait until there are no active connections and the server's idle time is greater than the your application’s session lifetime before taking the server offline.

  • Page 90: Defining A Match Rule

    By default, all clusters have a single match rule that matches ANY and matches all servers. To add a match rule to an HTTP or HTTPS virtual cluster: Log into the Equalizer Administration interface with edit access. In the left frame, click the name of the cluster to which you want to add the rule.
  • Page 91 To match requests that meet any of the specified criteria, use the OR operator. 1. Regular expressions are specified according to IEEE Std 1003.2 (“POSIX.2”). For more information, see “Reg- ular Expression Format” on page 105. Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 92: Modifying A Match Rule

    Modifying a Match Rule To edit an existing match rule: Log into the Equalizer Administration interface with edit access. In the left frame, click the name of the match rule you want to change. Select Edit Match Rule from the local menu in the Match Rule frame. The Edit Match Rule dialog is displayed in the right frame.

  • Page 93: Removing A Match Rule

    Removing a Match Rule To delete an existing match rule: Log into the Equalizer Administration interface with edit access. In the left frame, click the name of the match rule you want to delete. Select Delete Match Rule from the local menu in the Match Rule frame.

  • Page 94: Removing A Server From A Match Rule

    Chapter 5: Administering Virtual Clusters evaluates to True, Equalizer will route the request to one of the servers associated with the rule. To add a server to a match rule: Log into the Equalizer Administration interface with edit access. In the left frame, click the name of the match rule to which you want to add the server.

  • Page 95: Administering Geographic Clusters

    Administering Geographic Clusters Geographic Load Balancing with Envoy Working with Geographic Clusters Working with Sites Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 96: Geographic Load Balancing With Envoy

    Equalizer system. Envoy Installation and Configuration Each site in an Envoy configuration has an Envoy-enabled Equalizer and any number of servers. Once you’ve completed the normal Equalizer installation and configuration at each location, you can install Envoy and configure your authoritative name server to work with Envoy.

  • Page 97: Using Envoy With Firewalled Networks

    Envoy sites communicate with each other on UDP ports 5300 and 5301. The firewall must allow traffic on these ports to pass between Equalizer/Envoy sites. Envoy sites and clients can exchange packets on UDP port 53. The firewall must allow...
  • Page 98 Specify the Load Balancing Responsiveness. This value controls how aggressively Equalizer adjusts the site’s dynamic weights. There are five responsiveness settings: Slowest, Slow, Medium, Fast, and Fastest. The faster settings allow Equalizer to adjust its load balancing criteria more frequently and permit a greater variance in the relative weights assigned to sites.

  • Page 99: Configuring A Geographic Cluster's Load-Balancing Options

    Figure 62 Changing load balancing options for a geographic cluster Select a Load Balancing Method. The load balancing method determines which algorithm Equalizer will use to distribute requests among the sites in the cluster: Round Trip—the client’s network proximity is weighted more heavily than other criteria.

  • Page 100: Deleting A Geographic Cluster

    Specify the Load Balancing Responsiveness. This value controls how aggressively Equalizer adjusts the site’s dynamic weights. There are five responsiveness settings: Slowest, Slow, Medium, Fast, and Fastest. The faster settings allow Equalizer to adjust its load balancing criteria more frequently and permit a greater variance in the relative weights assigned to sites.
  • Page 101 Specify whether the site is a peer site or the default site by selecting the appropriate radio button. A peer site’s IP address is returned by Equalizer based on the selected load balancing algorithms. The default site is chosen if the client’s DNS server did not respond to ICMP echo requests from any site.

  • Page 102: Adjusting A Site's Static Weight

    Equalizer uses a site’s static weight as the starting point for determining what percentage of requests to route to that site. Equalizer assigns sites with a higher static weight a higher percentage of the load. The relative values of site static weights are more important than the actual values.

  • Page 103: Deleting A Site From A Geographic Cluster

    Deleting a Site from a Geographic Cluster To delete a site from a geographic cluster: Log into the Equalizer Administration interface with edit access. In the left frame, click the name of the site you want to delete. The Site Parameters are displayed in the right frame.
  • Page 104 Chapter 6:Administering Geographic Clusters Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 105: Troubleshooting

    Clients time out while trying to contact a virtual cluster Can’t view Equalizer administration pages Equalizer administration page takes a long time to display Equalizer doesn’t respond to pings to the admin address Browser hangs when trying to connect via FTP to an FTP cluster...

  • Page 106: Equalizer Doesn't Boot

    Equalizer. Possible cause: Equalizer is not active. Is Equalizer functioning? Try to ping the administration address. If you do not get a response, see “Equalizer doesn’t respond to pings to the admin address” for more troubleshooting information.

  • Page 107: Equalizer Administration Page Takes A Long Time To Display

    Check that Equalizer has IP connectivity to the name server configured using the serial configuration utility. If you want to disable DNS lookups on Equalizer, specify a name server IP address of 0.0.0.0 in Equalizer's serial configuration utility. Equalizer doesn’t respond to pings to the admin address Possible cause: Equalizer is not powered on.
  • Page 108 Chapter 7:Troubleshooting Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 109: A Using Server Agents

    Using Server Agents Introducing Server Agents Custom Server Agents Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 110: Introducing Server Agents

    Coyote Point can provide sample agents written in C that you can modify for your specific needs. The agent protocol is extremely simple: when Equalizer connects to the agent’s port, the agent must respond with an ASCII string and close the port. The ASCII string is a number that represents the current condition of the server: Service is unavailable.

  • Page 111: B Using Reserved Ip Addresses

    Using Reserved IP Addresses Reserved IP Addresses Configuration Worksheet for Using Reserved IP Addresses Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 112: Reserved Ip Addresses

    Appendix B:Using Reserved IP Addresses Reserved IP Addresses Equalizer supports placing servers on reserved, non-routable networks such as the class A network 10.0.0.0 and the class C network 192.168.2.0. In environments where the conservation of IP addresses is important, using reserved IP addresses can minimize the number of “real”...

  • Page 113: Configuration Worksheet For Using Reserved Ip Addresses

    What is the “reserved” network to be used for the internal network? Equalizer uses this set of address to balance the load across the servers. (Equalizer uses the internal network to forward connections to the HTTP daemons running on the servers.)
  • Page 114 Appendix B:Using Reserved IP Addresses Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 115: C Regular Expression Format

    Regular Expression Format The Equalizer Match Rules can be specified using IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') regular expressions. Regular expressions are not case sensitive. A regular expression (RE) is one or more non-empty branches, separated by |. An expression matches anything that matches one of the branches.
  • Page 116 RE taking priority over ones starting later. Note that higher-level subexpressions thus take priority over their lower-level component subexpressions. Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...
  • Page 117 `abbbc', `(wee|week)(knights|nights)' matches all ten characters of `weeknights', when `(.*).*' is matched against `abc' the parenthesized subexpression matches all three characters, and when `(a*)*' is matched against `bc' both the whole RE and the parenthesized subexpression match the null string. Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...
  • Page 118 Appendix C:Regular Expression Format Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 119: D Equalizer Configuration File

    Equalizer Configuration File Modifying the Equalizer Configuration File Equalizer Parameters Cluster-Specific Parameters Server-Specific Parameters Match Group Parameters Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 120: Modifying The Equalizer Configuration File

    The configuration information for an Equalizer is stored in /etc/eq.conf. This file defines all of the Equalizer, Cluster, and Server parameters for the system, as well as the match rules used for L7 content-sensitive load balancing. Changes that you make to the Equalizer configuration are stored in the eq.conf file.

  • Page 121: Equalizer Parameters

    Equalizers synchronized. connect_timeout This is the time, in tenths of a second, before a connection from the Equalizer to a back-end server is timed out. This will not necessarily be reflected back to the client, as other servers will be tried first to satisfy the request, if available. Only applicable for L7.
  • Page 122 The sticky_netmask parameter is used when sticky network aggregation is enabled. It indicates which portion of the address Equalizer should use to identify particular networks. The mask corresponds to the number of bits in the network portion of the address: 8 bits corresponds to a class “A”...

  • Page 123: Cluster-Specific Parameters

    The TCP or UDP port number of the virtual cluster. Depending on the protocol, this can have a default value supplied, such as port 443 for HTTPS. The IP address of the virtual cluster. This is the external IP address which clients will use to connect to the cluster. Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...
  • Page 124 Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 125: Http-Specific Cluster Parameters

    Judicious use of this, in conjunction with the receive_socket_buffer, can be used to ensure that misbehaved clients cannot waste resources on the Equalizer. For the Equalizer to simultaneously handle X L7 requests for a cluster, it must have in excess of “request_max” times X KBytes of non-swappable kernel memory allocated to the network as mbufs;...

  • Page 126: Server-Specific Parameters

    Persistent sessions which have selected this server will continue to use it, so long as it remains Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 127: Match Group Parameters

    URI has the specified prefix. filename_suffix(“suff”)—True if the filename portion of the URI has the specified suffix. Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 128: Https-Specific Match Group Parameters

    HTTPS extends the HTTP set with: ssl2()—True if the client has requested using SSL protocol version 2. ssl3()—True if the client has requested using SSLprotocol version 3. tls1()—True if the client has requested using TLS protocol version 1. Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 129: E Technical Specifications

    EIA 1U Rack mount Enclosure Height: 1.75 in. (45 mm) Width: 17 in. (430 mm) Depth: 18 in. (470 mm) Power: 110/240 VAC Auto-switching 50/60 Hz Environmental: Operating temperature: 0º to 45ºC Relative humidity 5% to 95% @ 40ºC Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...
  • Page 130 Appendix E:Technical Specifications Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 131: F License And Warranty

    RELATED EQUIPMENT AND HARDWARE (WITH PROOF OF PAYMENT) TO THE PLACE OF PURCHASE FOR A FULL REFUND. Coyote Point Systems, Inc. (“Coyote Point Systems”) and its suppliers grant to Customer (“Customer”) a nonexclusive and nontransferable license to use the Coyote Point Systems software (“Software”) in object code form solely on a single central processing unit owned...
  • Page 132 You are entitled to warranty service according to the terms and conditions of this document if a repair to your Coyote Point Systems software or hardware is required within the Limited Warranty Period. This Limited Warranty extends only to the original purchaser of this Coyote Point Systems product and is not transferable to anyone who obtains ownership of the Coyote Point Systems product from the original purchaser.
  • Page 133 Limited Warranty become the property of Coyote Point Systems. Coyote Point Systems, at its discretion, may elect to provide you with a replacement unit of Coyote Point Systems' choosing that is at least equivalent to your Coyote Point Systems product in hardware performance.
  • Page 134 Coyote Point Systems sales literature or advice given to you by Coyote Point Systems or an agent or employee of Coyote Point Systems that may have been made in connection with your purchase of the Coyote Point Systems product.
  • Page 135 UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON CONTRACTS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL SALE OF GOODS SHALL NOT APPLY TO THESE TERMS IN ANY RESPECT. THIS DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES AND LIMITED WARRANTY ARE SUBJECT TO THE TERMS OF SALE OF THE COYOTE POINT SYSTEMS' PRODUCT. Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...
  • Page 136 Appendix F:License and Warranty Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...

  • Page 137: Glossary

    Distributing requests across servers in different physical locations. geographic probe A query sent t to a site in a geographic cluster to gather information so Equalizer can determine which site is best able to process a pending request. internal address The IP address assigned to Equalizer on the external network.

  • Page 138: Chapter <$Chapnum

    A value that indicates the relative proportion of connection requests that a particular back-end server will receive. site A cluster of servers under Equalizer control that is part of a geographic cluster. static weight The server weight that an administrator assigns to a particular back-end server. During operation, Equalizer dynamically adjusts the server weights, so a server’s weight at a particular...

  • Page 139: Index

    44, 68 server backup site 48, 49 checklist aggressive load balancing cluster algorithm examples always use cookie 29, 51 failover authoritative name server network configuring network parameters average triangulation time parameters, committing changes to Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...
  • Page 140 Configure Network Interfaces window configuring requests a cluster to use server agents a cluster’s load balancing options domain a second Equalizer as a hot backup name Equalizer name server events name service geographic cluster load-balancing options down...
  • Page 141 88, 90 88, 90 logging into site weight character based static weight external load distribution, geographic internal local area network internal local menu address local name server interface 10, 12 logging in interface parameters administration interface Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...
  • Page 142 10, 91 configuration port connectivity cluster external redirection internal serial latency 6, 47, 50 server local area port 21 parameters, configuring power cord single primary Network Configuration window mode Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...
  • Page 143 38, 42 statistics configuration plotting deleting plotting geographic cluster displaying information about plotting site IP address status probes port 4, 5, 70 sticky connections removing from a match rule Equalizer Installation and Administration Guide...
  • Page 144 41, 43, 47, 49 zoom lems UDP load balancing upgrading Equalizer user name using a second Equalizer as a backup Equalizer as a gateway between networks Equalizer in a single network environment IP aliases reserved IP addresses server agents view menu...

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