3.4.0 Matrix Server Administration Guide

Chapter 15: Test Your Configuration 177

5. Verify that Matrix Server detects the service failure. The virtual host

should be inactive on the primary server and active on the first backup

server.

6. Start the service that you are testing on the primary server.

7. Verify that Matrix Server detects that the service has become active.

8. Verify that the virtual host is active on the primary server and inactive

on the backup servers.

We strongly recommend that you run these tests successfully before

attempting more advanced tests. ISPs and hosting services should also

attempt multiple virtual host failover and reintegration tests.

Test DNS Load-Balancing and Failover

Testing the correct functionality of the load-balancing configuration is a

little more difficult than the primary/backup failover configuration. There

are more components to test, including the DNS server and multiple

clients.

The easiest way to test load-balancing and configuration is to use a single

client from outside of the matrix, ping the virtual hostnames, and

determine whether the DNS server is providing the virtual host IP

addresses in succession. The DNS server must be set up as described in

“Configure Servers for DNS Load Balancing” on page 42.

The following examples assume that you have a two-server round robin

setup, but you can easily extend this test for more than two servers.

Assume that you have the following DNS round robin setup:

www.acmd.com 192.168.100.1

www.acmd.com 192.168.100.2

The DNS name is www.acmd.com and 192.168.100.1 is a virtual host with

primary on acmd1 and backup on acmd2. 192.168.100.2 is primary on

acmd2 and backup on acmd1. DNS is set up to round robin on the servers

acmd1 and acmd2, using the virtual host addresses 192.168.100.1 and

192.168.100.2.