Greetings, I'm looking for a load balancing solution for X2Go, and I've seen ballast turned up in several searches. It looks promising, but I was wondering if anyone has worked with it specifically in regards to X2Go, and even better, the Broker Server?
I've tried using the Cluster Services developed by the X2Go team, but it seems to have major issues with root-squashed NFS mounted home directories, so it's somewhat of a no go for me. Hence, my quest for open source alternatives.
Thanks in advance for your consideration and suggestions!
-- Kermit Short, RHCE, RHCVA Sr. Solutions Architect Los Alamos National Laboratory
ph: (505) 667-6360 em: k_short@lanl.gov<mailto:k_short@lanl.gov>
Hi Kermit,
On Di 14 Okt 2014 20:35:01 CEST, Short, Kermit wrote:
I've tried using the Cluster Services developed by the X2Go team,
but it seems to have major issues with root-squashed NFS mounted
home directories, so it's somewhat of a no go for me. Hence, my
quest for open source alternatives.
What exactly is the "Cluster Services"? None of us has developed
something under that name.
With our project "X2Go Session Broker" there are indeed some caveats
regarding HOMEs on NFS.
Please report bugs / enter the discussion with us, so we can pin down
the causes of your problems.
Mike
--
DAS-NETZWERKTEAM mike gabriel, herweg 7, 24357 fleckeby fon: +49 (1520) 1976 148
GnuPG Key ID 0x25771B31 mail: mike.gabriel@das-netzwerkteam.de, http://das-netzwerkteam.de
freeBusy: https://mail.das-netzwerkteam.de/freebusy/m.gabriel%40das-netzwerkteam.de.xf...
Am 15.10.2014 um 10:13 schrieb Mike Gabriel:
With our project "X2Go Session Broker" there are indeed some caveats regarding HOMEs on NFS.
We run into another problem, probably. We are evaluating X2Go for use as an access service to our universitary environment. I got a broker environment up and running, but:
Our user base consists of thousands accounts. Only a few of them will probably use the service, but all of them should be able to do so if they wish - without further interaction or configuration. Fluctuation is high, users are added or removed daily. The broker seems to be tightly connected to Postgres, with an Postgres user corresponding to every X2Go user. This is needed to add and remove state information for the sessions of a user. So we would have to develop a synchronization application connecting our identity management to Postgres. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Looking at ballast, could this provide the loadbalancing features we need? This solution would obviously lack the handling of suspended sessions, but we could live without it.
Regards Bengt
Hi Mike, My apologies, I didn't mean to imply an sort of X2Go product called Cluster Services. I'm simply referring to the Load Balanced implementation of X2Go Broker. As Begnt Giger mentioned, there is a significant amount of infrastructure behind the Load Balanced implementation. I would certainly agree with his assessment of account replication in Postgres. While we could get around it, it would be a lot easier if we didn't have to. Additionally, Load Balancing implementation seems to require the ability for root to write files to each individual's home directory. In our case, all of our user home directories are hosted on a central NetApp server, and that home directory export is root squashed.
Due to the significant challenges we're faced with this load balancing implementation, I was hoping there may be another approach we could take to load balancing an x2go terminal server, such as load balancing ssh connections using ballast. This is purely exploratory and theoretical. It just appears that certain assumptions are made about the network and service infrastructure environment with the currently offered load balancing implementation of X2Go Broker server that we are unable to meet, so I'm looking for an alternative.
Thanks!
-- Kermit Short, RHCE, RHCVA Sr. Solutions Architect Los Alamos National Laboratory
ph: (505) 667-6360 em: k_short@lanl.gov<mailto:k_short@lanl.gov>
On Wed, 2014-10-15 at 08:13 +0000, Mike Gabriel wrote:
Hi Kermit,
On Di 14 Okt 2014 20:35:01 CEST, Short, Kermit wrote:
I've tried using the Cluster Services developed by the X2Go team, but it seems to have major issues with root-squashed NFS mounted home directories, so it's somewhat of a no go for me. Hence, my quest for open source alternatives.
What exactly is the "Cluster Services"? None of us has developed something under that name.
With our project "X2Go Session Broker" there are indeed some caveats regarding HOMEs on NFS.
Please report bugs / enter the discussion with us, so we can pin down the causes of your problems.
Mike
Hi Kermit, hi Bengt,
On Mi 15 Okt 2014 19:23:43 CEST, Short, Kermit wrote:
Hi Mike, My apologies, I didn't mean to imply an sort of X2Go product
called Cluster Services. I'm simply referring to the Load Balanced
implementation of X2Go Broker. As Begnt Giger mentioned, there is a
significant amount of infrastructure behind the Load Balanced
implementation. I would certainly agree with his assessment of
account replication in Postgres. While we could get around it, it
would be a lot easier if we didn't have to. Additionally, Load
Balancing implementation seems to require the ability for root to
write files to each individual's home directory. In our case, all
of our user home directories are hosted on a central NetApp server,
and that home directory export is root squashed.
Ok. Getting you. I agree on the awkwardness of root needing write access.
Due to the significant challenges we're faced with this load
balancing implementation, I was hoping there may be another approach
we could take to load balancing an x2go terminal server, such as
load balancing ssh connections using ballast. This is purely
exploratory and theoretical. It just appears that certain
assumptions are made about the network and service infrastructure
environment with the currently offered load balancing implementation
of X2Go Broker server that we are unable to meet, so I'm looking for
an alternative.
One approach could be the ident authentication in PostgreSQL.
Another could be a complete redesign of the PostgreSQL DB backend.
What we are currently working on for X2Go Server 5 (next gen) is an
X2Go Server that does not need a database, because all session
information lies in RAM and X2Go Servers hooked together as a
multi-server farm will have a means of talking to each other (like
CUPS servers or so).
But for the X2Go Server 4 implementation, we probably soon need to
redesign the mult-server farm concept.
Another option could be to setup up unintelligent load balancing
(agent-query-mode=NONE in your sesion broker configuration). With
agent-query-mode=NONE all X2Go Servers can run on an SQLite session DB
which will take the NFS/NetApp-stress from you, I guess. Unintelligent
load balancing means: the server gets picked from the broker's host
list by $RANDOM. You won't be able to resume sessions (and you should
forbid that on the server (e.g. by symlink x2gosuspend-session to
x2goterminate-session).
Any input on this from your side (or a development contract for one of
the X2Go core devs ;-) ) will be highly appreciated (as my list of
community work todos is currently very long).
Hope this helps a bit... And... I really see one of you guys joining
in with improving the load balancing approach in X2Go.
Greets, Mike
--
DAS-NETZWERKTEAM mike gabriel, herweg 7, 24357 fleckeby fon: +49 (1520) 1976 148
GnuPG Key ID 0x25771B31 mail: mike.gabriel@das-netzwerkteam.de, http://das-netzwerkteam.de
freeBusy: https://mail.das-netzwerkteam.de/freebusy/m.gabriel%40das-netzwerkteam.de.xf...
Am 16.10.2014 15:33, schrieb Mike Gabriel:
Hope this helps a bit... And... I really see one of you guys joining in with improving the load balancing approach in X2Go.
And we still have at least one free bed in our "X2Go: The Gathering" Community Event (2014-10-31 to 2014-11-02 at Linuxhotel, Essen, Germany) planning. So if you want to join us, please let me know ASAP.
Costs are around 60 EUR for the entire stay at the hotel (including flat rate beverages, even alcoholic ones; breakfast, and the bed), an additional 15,90 EUR for dinner on Saturday, plus whatever you want to spend on food on Friday and Sunday.
-Stefan
-
Bengt Giger -
Mike Gabriel -
Short, Kermit -
Stefan Baur