[CLUE-Tech] apache + ssl + web server cluster + one domain name= nightmare

[Mike Staver]

Dave Anselmi wrote:
> 
> Hmm...  Apache doesn't care what server you ask for.  If you point dns so that www, xxx, and
> yyy go to the same IP, apache will answer the same way to all of them (or different if you
> do virtual hosts).  The only problem will be if the server name has an underscore in it -
> then apache complains.

Yes, I have the virtual hosts set up because there are 2 certificates -
one for www and one for www2.  Meaning, I have to have to seperate
virtual hosts set up for each name.  
 
> I'm curious how the url is changed.  I seem to get the cert before it changes, and I don't
> get any warnings about being redirected to a different site.  If apache is involved in the
> change, it might be possible to adjust it.

I know apache is not involved in the change at all - unless it's
something I can't control in the httpd.conf file.  Yes, you appear to
get the cert warning before, but that's the thing about cold fusion -
even with the <cflocation> tag, your redirection is completely
transparent to the browser.  Meaning, with that tag, I could forward you
to 10 different pages, and your browser history would only show one. 
It's not like a redirection in some other server side scripting
languages.  That's how it's doing the load balancing, and yes, cold
fusion server/cluster cats is on each machine - so if one dies, you
don't lose your load balancing.  

> Does CC have sticky sessions?  That's what Cisco called it when they
> would switch a client to the same server for some period of time.  You can use that to get
> around needing to share session variables (though there is a downside in reliability).
> 
> How does CC share the session variables?  Is there some server to server channel?

Each nic on the web servers is ip aliased, and contains 2 ip addresses. 
It uses those back ip addresses to communicate things like session
variables and probing for the loads of each server so it knows which box
to distribute the hit too.  I'm not sure what you mean by sticky
sessions...

-- 

                                -Mike Staver
                                 staver at fimble.com
                                 mstaver at globaltaxnetwork.com
                                 http://www.fimble.com/staver