Re: RPMs for spread/wackamole/etc and wackamole issues

On Nov 11, 2007, at 12:33 AM, Dan Zubey wrote:

> Been watching the list for awhile, also read your book, Theo.
>
> The book and websites are great on high-level architectural  
> information, but I'm wondering where is a good source of nitty- 
> gritty, down and dirty installation information?

The wackamole stuff is pretty straight forward, almost all configs  
look the same:

== BEGIN ==
Spread = 4803
SpreadRetryInterval = 5s
Group = wack1
Control = /var/run/wack.it
Prefer None
VirtualInterfaces {
         { bge1:10.80.117.6/23 }
}
Arp-Cache = 90s
Notify {
         bge1:10.80.117.6/23
         arp-cache
}
balance {
         AcquisitionsPerRound = all
         interval = 4s
}
mature = 5s
== END ==

For example, the above is the production config used on an internal  
master-master LDAP cluster down the hall.

Most often, the only thing that changes is the bge1:10.80.117....  
stuff.  On Linux and FreeBSD be careful to specify /32 in the  
VirtualInterface section -- and obvious replace with ethX on Linux and  
the appropriate network adapter on FreeBSD.

The Spread setup can be a bit more finicky.  I think Ciprian does  
setup and troubleshooting good justice in the Appendix to my book.   
And while I'd love everyone to buy a copy, I will note the Appendix is  
available (along with two other chapters) for download:

http://scalableinternetarchitectures.com/blog/pages/about

Wackamole could use a rewrite -- it's missing a lot of features:
   Better pre/post (Acquire/Release) user-level actions
   Security
   Allowing virtual interfaces on networks that don't have a non- 
wacked interface already:
     this requires implementing bring up (and possibly down) routes  
(and configuring them)
   Heterogenous cluster configurations:
     each node knows what IPs it can take and it "may" overlap with  
other nodes.. they just "work it out"

Given wackamole itself being really low level, I find it annoying that  
it requires the Spread daemon.  While this isn't problematic (it's  
never bitten me), I like things that operate on a level this low to be  
less dependent on user-land services.  I'd like it if embedded Spread  
4, but also if the configuration was more dynamic.

Well, there's my wishlist.

> Wanted to go to Atlanta Monday for apachecon 07, but couldn't get  
> away from work. Good luck, Theo.

Thanks!

--
Theo Schlossnagle
Esoteric Curio -- http://lethargy.org/
OmniTI Computer Consulting, Inc. -- http://omniti.com/