Hello.

I've been searching for load balancing(Not HA!) solutions for a small 3-node cluster. Basicly, I want to round robin one virtual IP which the 3 nodes share.
Coming from the Windows enviroment, I'm used to this sort of clustering. Could it really be that there isn't some sort of Linux equivalent?

I've read alot about LVS and HAProxy, but it doesn't seem like the sort of thing I need, or can someone point me to a configuration which suits my needs?

Last resort would be to add a seperate load balancer node, which would be kind of overkill, and would probably add more overhead to the load sharing.

Running Ubuntu server 12.04 x86_64.

Thanks in advance

Hi,

I guess it really depends on what you are trying to achieve. First off, a vIP generally suits an active/standby solution where the vIP lives on the active node until it goes down then flips to the standby.

For round robin/load sharing it seems to me you are trying to load balance a particular service. For something like http I would look at a reverse proxy.

I'm speculating here, some further details of the desired outcome might be in order

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Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it.

You're absolutely right - the vIP LVS solutions is mostly active/standby, which I'm not that interested in. Allow me to elaborate on the setup - although I initially wanted to avoid it, because the nature of the business is alittle bit frowned upon.
I work for an advertising agency which sends out huge amounts of subscriber mails (not technically spam, but still - lots of ad mails). I have 2 backend servers handling the databases and mail generation, and right now, I only have one server actually sending out the mails. I wish to add 2-3 more servers to share the load.
So the easiest thing would be to use some sort of ip clustering on all the smtp servers running postfix, and then make the backend servers relay to that IP.

Like mentioned above, if this is not possible, I would be able to insert a seperate load balancer.

Any input or suggestions would be highly appreciated