load balancing module for virtualmin/cloudmin?

General Discussion
1

Hi,

I guess this is probably related to virtualmin or maybe even cloudmin: I am interested in some form of “load balancing” module for webmin, so that I can set up a “load balanced” network of servers (such as round robin DNS, CDN, distributed apache synchronized via rsync, mySQL with master replication etc).

I know that many of these services can already be configured individually - i.e. manually, on a “per server” basis, but I am looking for a more abstract way of doing things - basically like the “virtualmin” module works:

In particular, I would also be very interested in webmin modules for configuring high-performance alternatives to apache, such as nginx, lightHTTPD, Yaws and mochiweb. In other words, HTTP servers for serving static content that may run on another server, while using reverse proxying.

I would like to be able to completely configure a network of load-balanced servers and services using virtualmin.

I already searched around quickly, but didn’t find any such modules - but maybe there are more people interested in this?

It seems to me that webmin, and especially virtualmin/cloudmin could be very well used for such a load-balancing module. In fact, most required modules seem to be in place already - it would apparently just be a matter of creating 1-3 new modules and “gluing” everything together?

So I guess, my question really is how difficult it would be to create new modules for webmin/virtualmin - is there any documentation available, or maybe some template modules that can be modified accordingly ?

It would actually be rather cool if new modules (that is, basic boilerplate stuff) could be created from within webmin/virtualmin - is that possible?

Is anybody else interested in such a load balancing module for webmin?

Personally, I would also consider using a commerical “pro” version then.

Thank you very much

  • wocul

PS: Some further pointers:

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_proxy_balancer.html
http://www.zytrax.com/books/dns/ch9/rr.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_balancing_(computing)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round-robin_DNS
http://socialcompare.com/en/comparison/apache-lightweight-web-servers-alternatives
http://www.cmswire.com/cms/web-cms/nginx-web-server-fast-alternative-to-apache-012215.php

2

Okay, I found some documentation to get started 1 - but is there some more comprehensive info available?

The info to be found in 2 seems to be pretty good for starters. But like I just said: it would REALLY ROCK to have a module for creating new modules, using some simple form of browser-based wizard to fill in most of the boilerplate stuff - that module could then also contain plenty of links to developer documentation.

Thanks

  • wocul
3

Okay, found some promising news: http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?10,118808,118808

There appears to be a project to implement a module for nginx: http://github.com/vixh/nginx-webmin
But it doesn’t seem to be very active at the moment ?

  • wocul
4

I am now looking into the example module 1, it seems to me this could be generalized and made XML-configurable, so that a webmin module can be used for creating new modules via the browser?
The documentation in 2 seems to be particularly good for starting new virtualmin modules.

Conceptually, I am thinking that a load-balancing module would better be implemented as a cloudmin module, right? Otherwise, the idea to use parameterizable “templates” (as supported by virtualmin) would seem very intriguing.

Thanks

-wocul

5

I guess, this should be moved to the “Blue Skies” sub forum instead?

6

I guess yes, the development of modules should be the right and correct way. Maybe also contact some of the developers on this software, like Nginx, and the wants you want to ask them if they can help develop modules for Webmin.

The load balancing and clustering, this can be done with several softwares, free or paid but its usually very much highly recommended to run load balancers in hardware. This means in their own hardware appliances because of the low network protocols they usually require in terms of traffic.

The point where Webmin/Virtualmin would have to be work toward is able to detach some services of allow them to be centralized. This means let you configure a remote MYSQL for example on each server, a remote FTP software, etc. So configs, loads, etc would be running in your storage, the one probably which is shared like a SAN device.