[Zope] [announce] first release of pythondirector

Anthony Baxter anthony@interlink.com.au
Tue, 02 Jul 2002 17:24:02 +1000


I've put the first suitable-for-someone-other-than-me release of
python director up on pythondirector.sourceforge.net. This is a
pure python (async I/O based) TCP loadbalancer/redirector. 

Why another load balancer? Well, the ones that are out there are
just not what I want or need. Python Director's aimed at people
who want or need a more sophisticated load balancer than something
that just provides a round robin service, and at the same time is
manageable without a restart.

Note that pydir handles any TCP protocol - not just HTTP. We use
it to loadbalance fastcgi fine.

Requires: Python 2.1 or greater.

feedback invited.

Anthony
--
Anthony Baxter     <anthony@interlink.com.au>
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.


----------
Full readme file follows:
----------


This is a pure python TCP load balancer. It takes inbound TCP
connections and connects them to one of a number of backend
servers. 

Project home: http://pythondirector.sourceforge.net/
Contact email: Anthony Baxter <anthony@interlink.com.au>

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Features:

  - async i/o based, so much less overhead than fork/thread based
    balancers

  - Multiple scheduling algorithms (random, round robin, leastconns)

  - If a server fails to answer, it's removed from the pool - the
    client that failed to connect gets transparently failed over to 
    a new host.

  - xml based configuration file

  - seperate management thread that periodically re-adds failed hosts
    if they've come back up.

  - optional builtin webserver for admin

----------------------------------------------------------------------

API (web based):

Admin interface: 

  running / running.txt 
    current configuration and status of the PD (HTML / text)

  config.xml - 
    initial config of the PD (xml)

  running.xml
    current running config of the PD (xml)

  Host mgmt:
    addHost?service=NNN&group=NNN&ip=NNN:n -
        add a new host to the group of a service
    delHost?service=NNN&group=NNN&name=NNN:n -
        remove a host from the group of a service
    delAllHosts?service=NNN&group=NNN -
        remove all hosts from the group of a service

    Note that the last two will not let you remove all hosts
    from the enabled group.

  group mgmt:
    enableGroup?service=NNN&group=NNN -
        switch the currently enabled group. Note that this will
        not affect any in-progress connections.

    changeScheduler?service=NNN&group=NNN&scheduler=NNN

  user mgmt:
    addUser
    delUser

  service mgmt:
    
  others:

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Changes from 0.0.2 to 0.0.3:

- delHost hooked up
- running.xml added - XML dump of current config
- centralised logging - the various things that write logfile 
  entries need to be made consistent, and a lot of additional 
  logging needs to be added.
- Python2.1 compatibility fix: no socket.gaierror exception on 2.1

Changes from 0.0.1 to 0.0.2:

- refactored web publishing (babybobo)
- package-ised and distutil-ised the code

----------------------------------------------------------------------

This software is covered by the following license:

Copyright (c) 2002 ekit.com Inc (http://www.ekit-inc.com/) 
and Anthony Baxter <anthony@interlink.com.au>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR
OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,
ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.