Hello Everyone,

I have an apache web server running on a Fedora box. I also have a Free-NAS storage and I am using nfs sharing to share & mount a folder from NAS to the Web Server.

Let's say that I have 5 different websites. Should I share a folder from NAS for each website or is it ok to share 1 folder, put all the websites in this? I mean which one is the best common way to do it? Is it ok to use NFS for sharing or is there any better option?

Actually what I want to do is that easily switch web servers if anything happens to one of them. If I have 2 web servers and one of them is down, I will move the mounting to the other one and keep the websites running.

Thanks in advance,

DP.

Depending on what you actually use you could put a load balancer or a caching proxy (or any other equivalent) in front of the web servers. This will not only spread load over both machines but also load balancers and caching proxies can sense a web server being unavailable and in the case of a caching proxy you also gain caching of any static content. Then, if you mount your shares on both web servers, the data will be available as long as the NAS doesn't become unavailable. Sounds OK?

1 members found this post helpful.

unSpawn, thank you very much, sounds great. I will use a load balancer but I want to make sure that I have the right idea or not.
It seems like I am thinking right.

If I use some shares for each web sites, like 10 or 20 shares and mount it to my web servers from NAS, will it be any issue for performance of the webserver?
I mean is it better to use only 1 share and then create subfolders for the web sites? I think I am having some permission issues if I use only 1 share from NAS.

Regards,

DP

It depends on what you're storing on the NAS plus that's actually something you could test...


Having separate shares basically isolates users plus it is more convenient to be able to attach separate mount points elsewhere. Besides, imagine your single mount point goes down ;-p (That also exposes the NAS as a Single Point of Failure.)

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks a lot UnSpawn, it's clear.