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Listening on Multiple IPs

6 messages in this thread

list Chris Ahrens · Thu, 3 Nov 2011 14:23:41 -0400 ·
Hi,

My Xymon server has 3 IP addresses that I want to spread out my incoming status messages on.  I did not use the --listen so that xymond would come up to use 0.0.0.0:1984 and netstat shows it listening on 0.0.0.0:1984, but when I look at the network traffic 99.9% of it is on eth0. 
My client servers are using the dns entry of the Xymon server and dns has all 3 IP addresses of the Xymon server associated correctly.

Any suggestions of what I may be doing wrong on the client or server?

Christopher Ahrens
Macy's Systems & Technology
Off: (XXX) XXX-XXXX x3122
user-d6ad043dbb12@xymon.invalid
list Josh Luthman · Thu, 3 Nov 2011 14:51:55 -0400 ·
I think you want to bond your Ethernet interfaces, nothing to do with
Xymon (beyond listening to the correct addresses).

Josh Luthman
Office: XXX-XXX-XXXX
Direct: XXX-XXX-XXXX
XXXX Wayne St
Suite XXXX
Troy, OH XXXXX
quoted from Chris Ahrens


On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 2:23 PM, Chris Ahrens <user-d6ad043dbb12@xymon.invalid> wrote:
Hi,

My Xymon server has 3 IP addresses that I want to spread out my incoming
status messages on.  I did not use the --listen so that xymond would come up
to use 0.0.0.0:1984 and netstat shows it listening on 0.0.0.0:1984, but when
I look at the network traffic 99.9% of it is on eth0.

My client servers are using the dns entry of the Xymon server and dns has
all 3 IP addresses of the Xymon server associated correctly.

Any suggestions of what I may be doing wrong on the client or server?

Christopher Ahrens
Macy's Systems & Technology
Off: (XXX) XXX-XXXX x3122
user-d6ad043dbb12@xymon.invalid

list Xymon User in Richmond · Thu, 3 Nov 2011 15:57:25 -0400 ·
quoted from Chris Ahrens
On Thu, November 3, 2011 14:23, Chris Ahrens wrote:
Hi,

My Xymon server has 3 IP addresses that I want to spread out my incoming
status messages on.  I did not use the --listen so that xymond would come
 up to use 0.0.0.0:1984 and netstat shows it listening on 0.0.0.0:1984,
but when I look at the network traffic 99.9% of it is on eth0.

My client servers are using the dns entry of the Xymon server and dns has
 all 3 IP addresses of the Xymon server associated correctly.

Any suggestions of what I may be doing wrong on the client or server?
DNS will return all 3 IPs on a query, and it's left to the client side
which to use.  Most often the first one is used.  "Round robin" DNS
servers will alternate the order of the 3, but that still leaves a lot of
room for locking in on a single address by multiple clients.  You could
set up different names for the IPs and bind groups of Xymon clients to
each to spread out the load, I think.
list Darrik Mazey · Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:44:10 -0400 ·
quoted from Xymon User in Richmond
On 11/03/2011 03:57 PM, Xymon User in Richmond wrote:
DNS will return all 3 IPs on a query, and it's left to the client side
which to use.  Most often the first one is used.  "Round robin" DNS
servers will alternate the order of the 3, but that still leaves a lot of
room for locking in on a single address by multiple clients.  You could
set up different names for the IPs and bind groups of Xymon clients to
each to spread out the load, I think.
This will also depend on whether the xymon client resolves the ip once
at startup or on each data send.  If it's once at startup, then whatever
ip it is given (even from a round-robin dns server) will persist until
it is restarted.  I'll leave it to those who have examined this behavior
and xymon client internals to say which is the case.

Darrik

-- 
Darrik Mazey
DarmaSoft, LLC.
XXXX Marigold Avenue
Akron, Ohio 44301-2627
tele: XXX.XXX.XXXX
user-9bfdc5e6ebcb@xymon.invalid
http://www.darmasoft.com/

To obtain my public key, send an email to user-c82d852a3dca@xymon.invalid.
list Ralph Mitchell · Thu, 3 Nov 2011 18:58:12 -0400 ·
quoted from Darrik Mazey
On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 6:44 PM, Darrik Mazey <user-634f30452b72@xymon.invalid>wrote:
On 11/03/2011 03:57 PM, Xymon User in Richmond wrote:
DNS will return all 3 IPs on a query, and it's left to the client side
which to use.  Most often the first one is used.  "Round robin" DNS
servers will alternate the order of the 3, but that still leaves a lot of
room for locking in on a single address by multiple clients.  You could
set up different names for the IPs and bind groups of Xymon clients to
each to spread out the load, I think.
This will also depend on whether the xymon client resolves the ip once
at startup or on each data send.  If it's once at startup, then whatever
ip it is given (even from a round-robin dns server) will persist until
it is restarted.  I'll leave it to those who have examined this behavior
and xymon client internals to say which is the case.

 If I recall past conversations correctly, xymon goes out to resolve
hostnames every time.  However, the actual behaviour depends on the host
system - if the host is running a name server cache daemon (e.g. nscd),
then xymon will be handed whatever is cached until that expires, then it'll
get a fresh copy from the real DNS.

You can override the name lookup for any given hostname by putting "testip"
on it's line in server/etc/hosts.cfg:

    1.2.3.4 xxx.thingy.com     # testip


Ralph Mitchell
list Henrik Størner · Fri, 04 Nov 2011 08:27:37 +0100 ·
quoted from Chris Ahrens
On 03-11-2011 19:23, Chris Ahrens wrote:
My Xymon server has 3 IP addresses that I want to spread out my incoming
status messages on. I did not use the --listen so that xymond would come
up to use 0.0.0.0:1984 and netstat shows it listening on 0.0.0.0:1984,
but when I look at the network traffic 99.9% of it is on eth0.

My client servers are using the dns entry of the Xymon server and dns
has all 3 IP addresses of the Xymon server associated correctly.
I suppose all three IP's are on the same IP-network ? How this is handled is highly OS dependant. I mostly have Linux experience, and there the IP's are not really associated with specific network interfaces - they are bound to the system as a whole. So even if you have an IP configured on one network interface, the traffic may just as well be received and transmitted over another interface, as long as they are all on the same IP network.

And that goes for ARP requests too, so you can easily end up with most of the traffic being handled by one interface.

As Josh wrote, the solution is to use Ethernet bonding - i.e. instead of 3 100 Mbit interfaces each with their own IP, you have one 300 Mbit interface with a single IP.


Regards,
Henrik