[Zope] ANNOUNCE: Pound - reverse proxy and load balancer - v1.3

[Robert Segall]

This is to announce the release of Pound v1.3.

Changes in this version:

- added support for OpenSSL Engine (crypto hardware)
- added support for Subversion WebDAV directives - Pound can now be used to 
load-balance several Subversion servers
- added support for mandatory client certificates (please note that this 
implies a slight change in the config file syntax - see the HTTPSHeaders 
section in the man page).
- added X-SSL-serial header for SSL connections to show the client 
certificate serial number (for checking against CRLs).
- fixed several code problems (BIO_pending now works reliably).
- fixed a problem with multi-threading in OpenSSL - SSL connections should 
now be more stable.
- improved autoconf

The software is at version 1.3 (production quality). Further testing 
(especially under heavy loads), improvements and suggestions are welcome.

What is Pound (from the Web page)

- a reverse-proxy: it passes requests from client browsers to one or more 
back-end servers.
- a load balancer: it will distribute the requests from the client browsers 
among several back-end servers, while keeping session information.
- an SSL wrapper: Pound will decrypt HTTPS requests from client browsers and 
pass them as plain HTTP to the back-end browsers.
- an HTTP/HTTPS sanitizer: Pound will verify requests for correctness and 
accept only well-formed ones.
- an HTTP/1.1 to 1.0 proxy.
- a fail-over-server: should a back-end server fail, Pound will take note of 
the fact and stop passing requests to it until it recovers.
- a request redirector - it will pass client requests to separate groups of 
servers, based on required URL and the presence or absence of headers 
(pattern matching)

Pound was specifically developed to serve as a front-end for multiple 
instances of Zope running on top of a common ZEO storage, but can be used 
with any other web server. A patch for the Python source of z2.py is 
available as part of the distribution to allow using Pound's SSL capabilities.

Pound is currently in use in several medium to large volume sites and seems 
to be holding up quite well: largest reported site does about 3.5 million 
requests per day, peaking at over 300 requests per second. The speed is well 
superior to other, equivalent solutions, the configuration is much simpler 
and the necessary resources (CPU, RAM, disk) are much, much lower.

Pound is distributed under the GPL.

For further information, download, etc. please see http://www.apsis.ch/pound

Enjoy and let me know how it works for you.
-- 
Robert Segall
Apsis GmbH
Postfach, Uetikon am See, CH-8707
Tel: +41-1-920 4904