Hi, I am using FreeBSD to host web and mail services. Currently, my setup is as follow:
Server1 in datacenter1: 1 web jail, 1 mail jail
Server2 at datacenter2: 1 web jail, 1 mail jail (failover)
The web jails have Apache, MySQL, Pure-FTPd and Bind installed.
The mail jails have Postfix, Dovecot and OpenLDAP installed.
MySQL and OpenLDAP are replicated. Files (web + mail) are synchronized using rsync.
In case server1 goes down, I modify the DNS entries to server2.
I will be upgrading to FreeBSD 9 soon, and I am thinking about changing my failover setup using HAST/CARP. Doing so I will move server2 to the same location as server1 (datacenter1).
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
Any thoughts why I should or should not do this? Thanks for your input.
Server1 in datacenter1: 1 web jail, 1 mail jail
Server2 at datacenter2: 1 web jail, 1 mail jail (failover)
The web jails have Apache, MySQL, Pure-FTPd and Bind installed.
The mail jails have Postfix, Dovecot and OpenLDAP installed.
MySQL and OpenLDAP are replicated. Files (web + mail) are synchronized using rsync.
In case server1 goes down, I modify the DNS entries to server2.
I will be upgrading to FreeBSD 9 soon, and I am thinking about changing my failover setup using HAST/CARP. Doing so I will move server2 to the same location as server1 (datacenter1).
Advantages:
- Fast switch (+ automatic) to failover server, no need to wait for DNS changes.
- Failover server has always the latest data (web + mail) files (using HAST instead of rsync), no need to check for possibly not synced files.
- More simple configuration, no need to setup MySQL and OpenLDAP replication.
Disadvantages:
- Chance of a corrupted MySQL database or OpenLDAP directory?
- In case I mess up some configuration on primary server, the failover is messed up too.
- In case datacenter1 goes down, I cannot do any failover.
Any thoughts why I should or should not do this? Thanks for your input.