This function was designed for haproxy while testing other functions
in the past. Initially it was not planned to be used given the not
very interesting numbers it showed on real URL data : it is not as
smooth as the other ones. But later tests showed that the other ones
are extremely sensible to the server count and the type of input data,
especially DJB2 which must not be used on numeric input. So in fact
this function is still a generally average performer and it can make
sense to merge it in the end, as it can provide an alternative to
sdbm+avalanche or djb2+avalanche for consistent hashing or when hashing
on numeric data such as a source IP address or a visitor identifier in
a URL parameter.
Summary:
Avalanche is supported not as a native hashing choice, but a modifier
on the hashing function. Note that this means that possible configs
written after 1.5-dev4 using "hash-type avalanche" will get an informative
error instead. But as discussed on the mailing list it seems nobody ever
used it anyway, so let's fix it before the final 1.5 release.
The default values were selected for backward compatibility with previous
releases, as discussed on the mailing list, which means that the consistent
hashing will still apply the avalanche hash by default when no explicit
algorithm is specified.
Examples
(default) hash-type map-based
Map based hashing using sdbm without avalanche
(default) hash-type consistent
Consistent hashing using sdbm with avalanche
Additional Examples:
(a) hash-type map-based sdbm
Same as default for map-based above
(b) hash-type map-based sdbm avalanche
Map based hashing using sdbm with avalanche
(c) hash-type map-based djb2
Map based hashing using djb2 without avalanche
(d) hash-type map-based djb2 avalanche
Map based hashing using djb2 with avalanche
(e) hash-type consistent sdbm avalanche
Same as default for consistent above
(f) hash-type consistent sdbm
Consistent hashing using sdbm without avalanche
(g) hash-type consistent djb2
Consistent hashing using djb2 without avalanche
(h) hash-type consistent djb2 avalanche
Consistent hashing using djb2 with avalanche
Summary:
In testing at tumblr, we found that using djb2 hashing instead of the
default sdbm hashing resulted is better workload distribution to our backends.
This commit implements a change, that allows the user to specify the hash
function they want to use. It does not limit itself to consistent hashing
scenarios.
The supported hash functions are sdbm (default), and djb2.
For a discussion of the feature and analysis, see mailing list thread
"Consistent hashing alternative to sdbm" :
http://marc.info/?l=haproxy&m=138213693909219
Note: This change does NOT make changes to new features, for instance,
applying an avalance hashing always being performed before applying
consistent hashing.
The max weight of server is 256 now, but SRV_UWGHT_MAX is still 255. As a result,
FWRR will not work well when server's weight is 256. The description is as below:
There are some macros related to server's weight in include/types/server.h:
#define SRV_UWGHT_RANGE 256
#define SRV_UWGHT_MAX (SRV_UWGHT_RANGE - 1)
#define SRV_EWGHT_MAX (SRV_UWGHT_MAX * BE_WEIGHT_SCALE)
Since weight of server can be reach to 256 and BE_WEIGHT_SCALE equals to 16,
the max eweight of server should be 256*16 = 4096, it will exceed SRV_EWGHT_MAX
which equals to SRV_UWGHT_MAX*BE_WEIGHT_SCALE = 255*16 = 4080. When a server
with weight 256 is insterted into FWRR tree during initialization, the key value
of this server should be SRV_EWGHT_MAX - s->eweight = 4080 - 4096 = -16 which
is closed to UINT_MAX in unsigned type, so the server with highest weight will
be not elected as the first server to process request.
In addition, it is a better choice to compare with SRV_UWGHT_MAX than a magic
number 256 while doing check for the weight. The max number of servers for
round-robin algorithm is also updated.
Signed-off-by: Godbach <nylzhaowei@gmail.com>
David Touzeau reported that haproxy dies when a server is checked and is
used in a farm with only "option transparent" and no LB algo. This is
because the LB params are NULL, the functions should be checked before
being called.
The same bug is present in 1.4 so this patch must be backported.
The principle behind this load balancing algorithm was first imagined
and modeled by Steen Larsen then iteratively refined through several
work sessions until it would totally address its original goal.
The purpose of this algorithm is to always use the smallest number of
servers so that extra servers can be powered off during non-intensive
hours. Additional tools may be used to do that work, possibly by
locally monitoring the servers' activity.
The first server with available connection slots receives the connection.
The servers are choosen from the lowest numeric identifier to the highest
(see server parameter "id"), which defaults to the server's position in
the farm. Once a server reaches its maxconn value, the next server is used.
It does not make sense to use this algorithm without setting maxconn. Note
that it can however make sense to use minconn so that servers are not used
at full load before starting new servers, and so that introduction of new
servers requires a progressively increasing load (the number of servers
would more or less follow the square root of the load until maxconn is
reached). This algorithm ignores the server weight, and is more beneficial
to long sessions such as RDP or IMAP than HTTP, though it can be useful
there too.
When the number of servers is a multiple of the size of the input set,
map-based hash can be inefficient. This typically happens with 64
servers when doing URI hashing. The "avalanche" hash-type applies an
avalanche hash before performing a map lookup in order to smooth the
distribution. The result is slightly less smooth than the map for small
numbers of servers, but still better than the consistent hashing.
Consistent hashing provides some interesting advantages over common
hashing. It avoids full redistribution in case of a server failure,
or when expanding the farm. This has a cost however, the hashing is
far from being perfect, as we associate a server to a request by
searching the server with the closest key in a tree. Since servers
appear multiple times based on their weights, it is recommended to
use weights larger than approximately 10-20 in order to smoothen
the distribution a bit.
In some cases, playing with weights will be the only solution to
make a server appear more often and increase chances of being picked,
so stats are very important with consistent hashing.
In order to indicate the type of hashing, use :
hash-type map-based (default, old one)
hash-type consistent (new one)
Consistent hashing can make sense in a cache farm, in order not
to redistribute everyone when a cache changes state. It could also
probably be used for long sessions such as terminal sessions, though
that has not be attempted yet.
More details on this method of hashing here :
http://www.spiteful.com/2008/03/17/programmers-toolbox-part-3-consistent-hashing/
The "static-rr" is just the old round-robin algorithm. It is still
in use when a hash algorithm is used and the data to hash is not
present, but it was impossible to configure it explicitly. This one
is cheaper in terms of CPU and supports unlimited numbers of servers,
so it makes sense to be able to use it.
LB algo macros were composed of the LB algo by itself without any indication
of the method to use to look up a server (the lb function itself). This
method was implied by the LB algo, which was not very convenient to add
more algorithms. Now we have several fields in the LB macros, some to
describe what to look for in the requests, some to describe how to transform
that (kind of algo) and some to describe what lookup function to use.
The next patch will make it possible to factor out some code for all algos
which rely on a map.
The lbprm structure has moved to backend.h, where it should be, and
all algo-specific types and declarations have moved to their specific
files. The proxy struct is now much more readable.
This patch adds support for hashing RDP cookies in order to
use them as a load-balancing key. The new "rdp-cookie(name)"
load-balancing metric has to be used for this. It is still
mandatory to wait for an RDP cookie in the frontend, otherwise
it will randomly work.
There is a patch made by me that allow for balancing on any http header
field.
[WT:
made minor changes:
- turned 'balance header name' into 'balance hdr(name)' to match more
closely the ACL syntax for easier future convergence
- renamed the proxy structure fields header_* => hh_*
- made it possible to use the domain name reduction to any header, not
only "host" since it makes sense to do it with other ones.
Otherwise patch looks good.
/WT]
This patch extends the "url_param" load balancing method by introducing
the "check_post" option. Using this option enables analysis of the beginning
of POST requests to search for the specified URL parameter.
The patch also fixes a few minor typos in comments that were discovered
during code review.
The new "leastconn" LB algorithm selects the server which has the
least established or pending connections. The weights are considered,
so that a server with a weight of 20 will get twice as many connections
as the server with a weight of 10.
The algorithm respects the minconn/maxconn settings, as well as the
slowstart since it is a dynamic algorithm. It also correctly supports
backup servers (one and all).
It is generally suited for protocols with long sessions (such as remote
terminals and databases), as it will ensure that upon restart, a server
with no connection will take all new ones until its load is balanced
with others.
A test configuration has been added in order to ease regression testing.
Now we can compute the max place depending on the number of servers,
maximum weight and weight scale. The formula has been stored as a
comment so that it's easy to choose between smooth weight ramp up
and high number of servers. The default scale has been set to 16,
which permits 4000 servers with a granularity of 6% in the worst
case (weight=1).
The number of possible options for a proxy has already reached
32, which is the current limit due to the fact that they are
each represented as a bit in a 32-bit word.
It's possible to move the load balancing algorithms to another
place. It will also save some space for future algorithms.
This round robin algorithm was written from trees, so that we
do not have to recompute any table when changing server weights.
This solution allows on-the-fly weight adjustments with immediate
effect on the load distribution.
There is still a limitation due to 32-bit computations, to about
2000 servers at full scale (weight 255), or more servers with
lower weights. Basically, sum(srv.weight)*4096 must be below 2^31.
Test configurations and an example program used to develop the
tree will be added next.
Many changes have been brought to the weights computations and
variables in order to accomodate for the possiblity of a server to
be running but disabled from load balancing due to a null weight.
By default, counters used for statistics calculation are incremented
only when a session finishes. It works quite well when serving small
objects, but with big ones (for example large images or archives) or
with A/V streaming, a graph generated from haproxy counters looks like
a hedgehog.
This patch implements a contstats (continous statistics) option.
When set counters get incremented continuously, during a whole session.
Recounting touches a hotpath directly so it is not enabled by default,
as it has small performance impact (~0.5%).
Some applications do not have a strict persistence requirement, yet
it is still desirable for performance considerations, due to local
caches on the servers. For some reasons, there are some applications
which cannot rely on cookies, and for which the last resort is to use
a parameter passed in the URL.
The new 'url_param' balance method is there to solve this issue. It
accepts a parameter name which is looked up from the URL and which
is then hashed to select a server. If the parameter is not found,
then the round robin algorithm is used in order to provide a normal
load balancing across the servers for the first requests. It would
have been possible to use a source IP hash instead, but since such
applications are generally buried behind multiple levels of
reverse-proxies, it would not provide a good balance.
The doc has been updated, and two regression testing configurations
have been added.
In preparation for newer balance algorithms, group the
sparse PR_O_BALANCE_* values into layer4 and layer7-based
algorithms. This will ease addition of newer algorithms.
The following patch will give the ability to tweak socket linger mode.
You can use this option with "option nolinger" inside fronted or backend
configuration declaration.
This will help in environments where lots of FIN_WAIT sockets are
encountered.
Peter van Dijk contributed this patch which implements the "smtpchk"
option, which is to SMTP what "httpchk" is to HTTP. By default, it sends
"HELO localhost" to the servers, and waits for the 250 message, but it
can also send a specific request.
Using the cttproxy kernel patch, it's possible to bind to any source
address. It is highly recommended to use the 03-natdel patch with the
other ones.
A new keyword appears as a complement to the "source" keyword : "usesrc".
The source address is mandatory and must be valid on the interface which
will see the packets. The "usesrc" option supports "client" (for full
client_ip:client_port spoofing), "client_ip" (for client_ip spoofing)
and any 'IP[:port]' combination to pretend to be another machine.
Right now, the source binding is missing from server health-checks if
set to another address. It must be implemented (think restricted firewalls).
The doc is still missing too.
This makes it possible to relay SSL connections in pure TCP instances while
ensuring the remote end really receives our data eventhough intermediate
agents (firewalls, proxies, ...) might acknowledge the connection.
The files are now stored under :
- include/haproxy for the generic includes
- include/types.h for the structures needed within prototypes
- include/proto.h for function prototypes and inline functions
- src/*.c for the C files
Most include files are now covered by LGPL. A last move still needs
to be done to put inline functions under GPL and not LGPL.
Version has been set to 1.3.0 in the code but some control still
needs to be done before releasing.
