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load balance with BigIP and Tomcat 4

 
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We're trying to install our existing web app on multiple machines and put a BigIP load balancer in front of them. Do we need to do anything different with Tomcat and/or our web app to get this load balancing to work, or should we basically be able to copy the Tomcat directory onto each machine and go?

The reason I ask is because if we access each web server directly via a public IP address, we can use the web app. However, if we try to go through the BigIP load balancer's public address, it won't work (and we're trying to figure out why).

We're using Tomcat 4. Oh yeah, we're trying to do this with standalone Tomcats on the Red Hat Linux boxes (we completely turn off Apache on the Linux boxes).

Thanks for any tips...
[ December 29, 2004: Message edited by: Stephen Huey ]
 
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what does 'it won't work' mean? be more specific.
 
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You don't need to do anything with Tomcat.
If you can hit them directly, then the problem is with your load balancer.

PS: If you want fail over capability, you will want to look into Tomcat clustering (replicating session data across all instances of Tomcat).
 
Stephen Huey
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Well, a consultant is trying to set up the BigIP for us. Networking is not his specialty (he's doing a LOT of stuff for us), but he knows a lot. However, the support folks are taking their sweet time returning our calls on the BigIP device.

When we turn the load balancer on and Apache is turned on on each of the Linux boxes, we can hit the Apache default page through the BigIP's address. However, when we turn Apache off and turn Tomcat 4 on on each of the machines, the web browser just hangs (that's why I was wondering if extra configuration has to be done with either Tomcat or the BigIP box, or the Tomcat running on the BigIP box if that's what it's running).

Tomcat 4 doesn't have clustering, and I don't think we'll upgrade that quickly!
 
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What is your approach to session maintenance/sharing?

Guy
 
Stephen Huey
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Actually, we don't do anything fancy with that. We're moving from Tomcat on one Windows box to two separate Tomcats on two Linux boxes, and so I haven't changed anything with the sessions (no clustering, no serialization...nada). My understanding from what the consultant said is that the BigIP is supposed to keep track of sending the visitor to the same machine again and again.
 
Stephen Huey
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So, the consultant has a networking guru friend at Sprint who knows the BigIP stuff, and that guy explained that the BigIP software has a bug and doesn't handle the header coming back from Tomcat properly (it handles Apache all right), and so he had to configure it differently for that. This consultant is a db expert, but he knows lots of Linux and took the first two years of Cisco classes (I can just barely handle Tomcat).

Right now, he's waiting for the BigIP folks to call back on opening up for SSH, because apparently there's a bug with that as well. However, they never called back about the Tomcat, so we're thinking they don't know how to fix this stuff and might never call us back. I think we're using old software, because we're probably using an entry F5 model.

This BigIP appliance has been fiasco from the start. We bought it from Dell, so they said we had to talk to Dell to get support, but the Dell support folks couldn't get anyone on the phone who knew anything about it! I guess they cost only a few measley thousand dollars so it's probably not worth it to them, huh?

 
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