[X2Go-User] x2go broker server integration with ballast

[Mike Gabriel]

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


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