3.5.1 Matrix Server Administration Guide

Chapter 12: Configure Virtual Hosts 208

The failover operation to another network interface has minimal impact

on clients. For example, if clients were downloading Web pages during

the failover, they would receive a “transfer interrupted” message and

could simply reload the Web page. If they were reading Web pages, they

would not notice any interruption.

If the active network interface fails, only the virtual hosts associated with

that interface are failed over. If the underlying server has other virtual

hosts configured on another network interface, those virtual hosts will

continue to access that server.

For more information about failover, see “Virtual Hosts and Failover” on

page 215.

Guidelines for Creating and Using Virtual Hosts

When creating virtual hosts, follow these guidelines:

• When planning the virtual hosts needed for your matrix, first

determine the network services that will be available to your clients.

Then determine the IP addresses for those services. You will need to

create a virtual host for each IP address.

• Choose virtual hostnames that differ from your actual server names.

Virtual hosts are independent of specific servers, and their names

should be independent as well.

• Use an IP address that is on the same subnet as the network interfaces

where it will be configured.

• Update the DNS name service or the /etc/hosts file with the virtual

hostnames and IP addresses. (For improved performance, the

Management Console caches hostname lookups. If your DNS changes,

you may need to restart the console so that it will reflect the new

hostname.)

•Do not use ifconfig or another tool to configure the IP address in the

operating system or a system startup script. Matrix Server configures

the operating system appropriately to support the virtual host.