How to combine mod_cluster automatic balancer with proxying to non-JBoss systems

[ishai]

Dear community member

As a long time JBoss user I was frilled to discover recently that mod_cluster provides solution that eliminates the need of keeping worker.properties files, etc. I am migrating an existing configuration that had mod_ajp and mod_proxy to redirect to JBoss and non-JBoss content. The relevant snippets of configuration are below. From playing around and browsing various posts I was able to successfully register and proxy into content hosted by JBoss or httpd. What I am failing to do for some reason and did not find any working example on community site or documentation is how to add non-JBoss proxied content in the mix. I see the content routed to JBoss still and am presented with 404 page. I will be endlessly indebpt to anyone that will help me with the issue.

Thank you in advance,

Irena

# MOD CLUSTER - START

LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so

LoadModule proxy_ajp_module modules/mod_proxy_ajp.so

LoadModule slotmem_module modules/mod_slotmem.so

LoadModule manager_module modules/mod_manager.so

LoadModule proxy_cluster_module modules/mod_proxy_cluster.so

#LoadModule advertise_module modules/mod_advertise.so

Listen *:7777

<VirtualHost *:7777>

  <Directory />

    Order deny,allow

    Deny from all

    Allow from some.ip

  </Directory>

  CreateBalancers 0

  KeepAliveTimeout 60

  MaxKeepAliveRequests 0

  LogLevel debug

ProxyPassMatch ^(/jboss-content1/.*)$ balancer://mycluster$1

ProxyPassMatch ^(/jboss-content2.*)$  balancer://mycluster$1

</VirtualHost>

<Proxy balancer://host1>

  BalancerMember https://host1:port1 loadfactor=1

</Proxy>

ProxyPassMatch ^(/content1/.*)$ balancer://host1$1

<Proxy balancer://host2>

  BalancerMember http://host2:8080 loadfactor=1

</Proxy>

ProxyPassMatch ^(/content2/.*)$ balancer://host2$1

# MOD CLUSTER - END

[rhusar]

Hi Irena,

as I am looking at it, I am not sure why are you using these 2?

ProxyPassMatch ^(/jboss-content1/.*)$ balancer://mycluster$1

ProxyPassMatch ^(/jboss-content2.*)$  balancer://mycluster$1

I dont think you need those at all.

So to serve the static content, you need to tell your Apache to NOT proxy those requests to any balancers/workers and keep it for itself :-)

So if you wanna serve all gif images from Apache, use this line:

ProxyPassMatch ^(/.*\.gif)$ ! 

Note that you need the "!" sign at the end (The ! directive is useful in situations where you don't want to reverse-proxy a subdirectory).

Also have a look at the docs

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_proxy.html#proxypass

http://docs.jboss.org/mod_cluster/1.1.0/html/native.config.html#d0e477

Hope that helps,

Rado

[ishai]

Hi Rado,

Thanks A LOT for the links to the documents. Already checked those. Didn't find the answer to my question about mixing JBoss and non-JBoss proxied content.

I added the ProxyPassMatch as mod_cluster 1.1.3 final was serving root content from JBoss (despite of the default setting to excluded content). I found that this seems to be a know issue to be fixed as described here and should be fixed by MODCLUSTER-220. The bug says it is fixed in 1.1.3 final but community discussion claims that should happen in 1.1.4 final. Bottom line, it server JBoss root document instead httpd one without this. I tried excluder root through ProxyPassMatch - that did not work either.

Please let me know if there is an example/documentation on how the mix can co-exist.

Irena

[rhusar]

Oh Right, the fix for 220 (which was actually filed by me -- LOL) might have messed that rewriting up. So could you try with 1.1.2 which shouldnt have this wrong fix in?

[ishai]

Thanks again Rado

With 1.1.2 final

ProxyPassMatch / !

does the trick with no need for jboss content spelled out correctly.

For non-JBoss content that used to be proxied with ProxyPass/ProxyPassReverse no change is actually needed. Balancers are for JBoss with mod_cluster.sar and will be polled for status - that will not work for non-JBoss.

Irena

[rhusar]

Great, I am glad you got it working! So lets wait for the 1.1.4 with the fix for the fix ;-)