Guidelines for pointing to one web server with many Virtual Sites

Software virtual servers? As in multiplexed by name? If so, it's one VS...

 

 

If your VS's are differentiated by IP or port, I'd use multiple VS's myself... Until at some point it gets onerous with too many VS's (And your threshold will vary here) and replace it with one VS again that uses either port 0 or a network VS for multiple IP's and use an iRule to dispatch to the correct pool.

 

 

Or did you mean a single physical web server and it's running multiple copies of apache on different IP's or ports... In which case I'd go with option 2 above again...

 

 

Sorry to be unclear, but the question was a bit wide open as to what you mean by 'virtual sites'.

 

 

H

Ah, sorry to be so vague, what I mean is an Apache instance (one only) that has a number of virtual server definitions on it, basically it's a "content" server with a number of marketing websites. I was just wondering how best to configure the F5, in that should I use an iRule, or anything, or just set up a virtual server on the F5 for each instance on the web server...

 

Thanks!

 

JP

 

Hi guys Jason & Hamish,

 

Can you share an iRule to achieve this task... as I am testing a similar environment before I take it live.

 

 

Regards,

1 more bit... Virtual servers configured on same ip:port (i.e software virtual servers using the host: header) or separate ip/port for each?

 

 

H

Here's a paste from the httpd.conf:

 

 

 

ServerAdmin webmaster@grantham.edu

 

VirtualDocumentRoot /var/www/hosts/%1

 

ServerAlias *.grantham.edu

 

LogFormat "%V %h %l %u %t \"%r\" %s %b" vcommon

 

ErrorLog logs/wildcard.grantham.edu.log

 

CustomLog logs/access_log vcommon

 

RewriteEngine On

 

RewriteOptions Inherit

 

 

AllowOverride All

 

Allow from all

 

 

 

AllowOverride All

 

 

 

AllowOverride All

 

Order allow,deny

 

Allow from 172.16.0.0/16

 

 

 

 

AllowOverride All

 

 

 

 

AllowOverride All

 

 

 

 

AllowOverride All

 

 

 

 

AllowOverride All

 

 

 

 

 

So I'm guessing I need a virtual server on the BigIP for each site?

I'm a windows guy, but if Apache will handle the requests properly based on the host header you should only need one VIP and the apache server should provide the content for that url. Hope I'm understanding the question properly.

 

 

John

That's kinda what I was thinking, that basically the BigIP will just flow traffic as normal with one VS, but our architecture typically (for logical reasons) separates on a one-to-one basis of BigIP Virtual Server to each individual instance on the web server. I just wasn't sure if this is standard, best practice, etc? Perhaps it would be better to go and create a unique port for each site and make a VS on the BigIP to each port...?

Honestly, I don't think there's a need to overcomplicate the architecture unless there are requirements I'm missing. A config like the following should work, and I've seen this done with sharepoint farms:

 

 

1. Single VIP on the F5

 

2. A single pool with your apache server(s)

 

3. If SSL is required, you'll want a wildcard cert for *.grantham.edu. If you're licensed for it you might consider offloading the SSL at the F5.

 

 

No iRule is required for this configuration, it's pretty basic.

 

 

Hope that helps,

 

John

Perfect, thanks!

 

Much Obliged.