Redundant FTP Servers
 

Looking for some opinions. We soon may have need for an installation of redundant FTP servers, in which they are either load balanced, or operate in an HA scenario.

I'm quite sure load balancing for FTP servers isn't going to work, because of possible disparities in the data between the two boxes. So my inclination is to lean toward a HA setup where the data is replicated from the primary to the secondary using Repliweb R1 or Bakbone's software, then in the event of failure change the NAT settings on the firewall to point to the secondary machine.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance...

Have you checked the High Availability Linux Project? They use DRBD for filesystem replication and it can manage Firewall settings too.

I've looked into HA linux, and install packages for RHEL don't seem to be readily available. They say to refer to the Centos Extras Repository, but I'm not having any luck there.

One thing I'm not totally clear on is Heartbeat's role as part of HA Linux. Is it merely a component of the larger program, or is it the newest version of the program?

Also, how does Redhat's Cluster Suite match up to HA linux for features, durability, and ease of installation and management?

Thanks...

Heartbeat is the core of the Linux HA project: any other related software may be optional (or better, you have alternatives), but heartbeat is the one which take care of monitoring the status of the nodes and take the proper action in case of failures.

All the packaged software is developed on and suited for SuSE/OpenSUSE but you may consider to build your own RPM from the source code (it contains a spec file) or from the source RPM.
I don't know about Redhat's cluster suite, but I can tell you that at the beginning it was not easy for me to understand the whole scenario by reading the documentation on the Linux HA website. But once I tried to install it became clear. Now, the whole configuration is based on XML (see CIB - Cluster Information Base) and once configured the system is easy to manage and monitor. Also, if you want to give it a try, consider to subscribe to their very active mailing list.

Such as? BTW - Thanks for the reply.