Installation guide

Appendix A. Example of Setting Up

Apache HTTP Server

This appendix provides an example of setting up a highly available Apache HTTP Server on a

Red Hat Cluster. The example describes how to set up a service to fail over an Apache HTTP

Server. Variables in the example apply to this example only; they are provided to assist setting

up a service that suits your requirements.

Note

This example uses the Cluster Configuration Tool (system-config-cluster).

You can use comparable Conga functions to make an Apache HTTP Server

highly available on a Red Hat Cluster.

1. Apache HTTP Server Setup Overview

First, configure Apache HTTP Server on all nodes in the cluster. If using a failover domain ,

assign the service to all cluster nodes configured to run the Apache HTTP Server. Refer to

Section 6, “Configuring a Failover Domain” for instructions. The cluster software ensures that

only one cluster system runs the Apache HTTP Server at one time. The example configuration

consists of installing the httpd RPM package on all cluster nodes (or on nodes in the failover

domain, if used) and configuring a shared GFS shared resource for the Web content.

When installing the Apache HTTP Server on the cluster systems, run the following command to

ensure that the cluster nodes do not automatically start the service when the system boots:

# chkconfig --del httpd

Rather than having the system init scripts spawn the httpd daemon, the cluster infrastructure

initializes the service on the active cluster node. This ensures that the corresponding IP address

and file system mounts are active on only one cluster node at a time.

When adding an httpd service, a floating IP address must be assigned to the service so that

the IP address will transfer from one cluster node to another in the event of failover or service

relocation. The cluster infrastructure binds this IP address to the network interface on the cluster

system that is currently running the Apache HTTP Server. This IP address ensures that the

cluster node running httpd is transparent to the clients accessing the service.

The file systems that contain the Web content cannot be automatically mounted on the shared

storage resource when the cluster nodes boot. Instead, the cluster software must mount and

unmount the file system as the httpd service is started and stopped. This prevents the cluster