Load balancing and clustering

Load balancing and clustering Open-Xchange

General

Open-Xchange Server 6 is primary built for the Software-as-a-Service world. Hosting and telecommunication providers around the world use Open-Xchange to offer hosted services to their customers. Open-Xchange Server 6 scales vertical and horizontal which means either use a more powerful server or add more machines to fulfill resource requirements. While upgrading a single server installation inevitable gets to a point where costs rise faster than performance gains, adding some simple machines to the installation provides linear cost increase and a slightly more complex administration. Besides the fiscal impact of using medium sized servers another key argument for clustering is service availability, single nodes can go down for maintenance without influencing the general service availability. A typical scenario for clustering is virtualization where multiple nodes can provide resources on demand.

One of the main principles of Open-Xchange Server 6 is the ability to utilize several medium sized servers. This guide will outline the basic principles of clustering Open-Xchange Server instances and provide load balancing to utilize all nodes of a cluster.

Requirements

Since clustering and load balancing is an advanced topic, skills on operating system and Open-Xchange Server 6 administration are required. To gain those skills, please refer to the documentation repository and general system administration lecture. With this guide we're going to set up five machines in total. Therefor it's recommended to get some training on a virtualized environment first. When rolling out the setup it is recommended to use real hardware or enterprise grade virtualization solutions like VMware ESX or Citrix XEN. If VMware is used, please make sure that VMware Tools are installed on all hosts to ensure optimal network performance. The following types servers will be set up:

• 1 Webserver (Apache)
• 2 Groupware nodes (Open-Xchange Server 6)
• 2 Database servers (MySQL Master/Slave)

To maintain consistency throughout the guide, each system gets a unique name which can be set as hostname. The IP addresses are also used through the whole guide but they may differ at the actual network setup. All systems run Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 (Lenny), any other supported platform works as well. All assumptions and instructions about system configuration is based on a minimal installation of the operating system. This guide is valid for Open-Xchange 6.10.

• web (10.20.30.210)
• oxgw01 (10.20.30.213)
• oxgw02 (10.20.30.215)
• dbmaster (10.20.30.217)
• dbslave (10.20.30.219)

When finishing the guide the setup will provide several load balancing and clustering features.

• Session load balancing
• Open-Xchange clustering
• Database master/slave replication
• Database read/write separation
• Distributed file storage
• Remote logging

Master/Slave database setup

Startup both database machines and install the mysql server packages

$ apt-get install mysql-server

During the installation, a dialog will show up to set a password for the MySQL 'root' user. Please set a strong password here.

Master configuration

Open the MySQL configuration file with you favorite editor

$ vim /etc/mysql/my.cnf

Modify or enable the following configuration options

bindaddress             = 10.20.30.217
server-id               = 1
log_bin                 = /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.log

• bindaddress specifies the network address where MySQL is listening for network connections. Since the MySQL slave and both Open-Xchange Servers are dedicated machines it is required to have the master accessible through the network.
• server-id is just a number within a environment with multiple MySQL servers. It needs to be unique for each server.
• log_bin enables the MySQL binary log which is required for Master/Slave replication. In general every statement triggered at the database is stored there to get distributed through the database cluster.

To apply the configuration changes, restart the MySQL server.

$ /etc/init.d/mysql restart

Then login to MySQL with the credentials given at the MySQL installation process

$ mysql -u root -p
Enter password:

Configure replication permissions for the MySQL slave server and the MySQL user "replication". This account is used by the MySQL slave to get database updates from the master. Please chose a strong password here.

 mysql> GRANT REPLICATION SLAVE ON *.* TO 'replication'@'10.20.30.219' IDENTIFIED BY 'secret';

Now setup access for the Open-Xchange Server database user 'openexchange' to configdb and the oxdb for both groupware server addresses. These databases do not yet exist, but will be created during the Open-Xchange Server installation.

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON configdb.* TO 'openexchange'@'10.20.30.213' IDENTIFIED BY 'secret' WITH GRANT OPTION;
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON oxdb.* TO 'openexchange'@'10.20.30.213' IDENTIFIED BY 'secret' WITH GRANT OPTION;
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON configdb.* TO 'openexchange'@'10.20.30.215' IDENTIFIED BY 'secret' WITH GRANT OPTION;
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON oxdb.* TO 'openexchange'@'10.20.30.215' IDENTIFIED BY 'secret' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Verify that the MySQL master is writing a binary log and remember the values

mysql> SHOW MASTER STATUS;
+------------------+----------+--------------+------------------+
| File             | Position | Binlog_Do_DB | Binlog_Ignore_DB |
+------------------+----------+--------------+------------------+
| mysql-bin.000001 |      1082|              |                  |
+------------------+----------+--------------+------------------+

Copy the MySQL master binary log and the index file to the slave. This is required for initial synchronization.

$ scp /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.* root@10.20.30.219:/var/log/mysql

Slave configuration

Set the MySQL system user as owner to the binary log that has just been copied to the slave.

$ chown mysql:adm /var/log/mysql/*

Open the MySQL configuration file with you favorite editor

$ vim /etc/mysql/my.cnf

Modify or enable the following configuration options. Just like the master, the slave requires a unique server-id and needs to listen to an external network address. Activating the binary log is not required at the slave.

bindaddress             = 10.20.30.219
server-id               = 2

To apply the configuration changes, restart the MySQL server.

$ /etc/init.d/mysql restart

Then login to MySQL with the credentials given at the MySQL installation process

$ mysql -u root -p
Enter password:

Configure the replication from the master based on the 'replication' user and the masters binary log status. The values for MASTER_LOG_FILE and MASTER_LOG_POS must equal the output of the SHOW MASTER STATUS command at the MySQL master.

mysql> CHANGE MASTER TO MASTER_HOST='10.20.30.217', MASTER_USER='replication', MASTER_PASSWORD='secret', MASTER_LOG_FILE='mysql-bin.000001', MASTER_LOG_POS=1082;

Now setup access for the Open-Xchange Server database user 'openexchange' to configdb and the oxdb for both groupware server addresses. These databases do not yet exist, but will be created during the Open-Xchange Server installation.

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON configdb.* TO 'openexchange'@'10.20.30.213' IDENTIFIED BY 'secret' WITH GRANT OPTION;
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON oxdb.* TO 'openexchange'@'10.20.30.213' IDENTIFIED BY 'secret' WITH GRANT OPTION;
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON configdb.* TO 'openexchange'@'10.20.30.215' IDENTIFIED BY 'secret' WITH GRANT OPTION;
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON oxdb.* TO 'openexchange'@'10.20.30.215' IDENTIFIED BY 'secret' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Start the MySQL slave replication

mysql> START SLAVE;

Check the slave status, sometimes it can take a while until the replication starts. Slave_IO_Running shows that the MySQL slave is exchanging data with the MySQL master.

mysql> SHOW SLAVE STATUS \G;
Slave_IO_Running: Yes
Slave_SQL_Running: Yes

Also check the syslog if the replication has been sucessfully started

$ tail -fn20 /var/log/syslog
Jul 26 19:03:45 dbslave mysqld[4718]: 090726 19:03:45 [Note] Slave I/O thread: connected to master 'replication@10.20.30.217:3306',  replication started in log 'mysql-bin.000001' at position 1082

Testing Master/Slave

On the master, create a new database in MySQL:

mysql> CREATE DATABASE foo;

Check if this database is available on the slave:

mysql> SHOW DATABASES;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| foo                |
| mysql              |
+--------------------+

Delete the database on the master

mysql> DROP DATABASE foo;

Check if the database has been removed at the slave

mysql> SHOW DATABASES;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
+--------------------+

Distributed file storage

The distributed file storage will be set up on the MySQL database master server. Of course it is possible to use a dedicated file server or a already existing storage system, this guide does not cover that. This has several reasons:

• Open-Xchange Server does not require much I/O on typical operation
• Data for groupware objects like the Infostore is stored at the file storage and file metadata is stored at the database. Consistency between the database and the file storage is critical.

Installation of the NFS server

Open-Xchange Server is able to access various storage backends, NFS (Network File System) is a mature and proven backend. Install the following packages at the MySQL master server to enable NFS storage

$ apt-get install nfs-kernel-server nfs-common portmap

Create a directory for the Open-Xchange Server file storage.

$ mkdir /var/opt/filestore

Open-Xchange Server runs as user open-xchange, create a user account at the NFS server, this is required for accessing the NFS export later. NFS will map the user id (uid) and group id (gid), therefor they need to be equal at the Open-Xchange Server nodes and the NFS server.

$ useradd open-xchange

Check the uid and gid, typically its 1001:1001 since it's the first user on the system.

$ grep open-xchange /etc/passwd
open-xchange:x:1001:1001::/home/open-xchange:/bin/sh

Make the newly created user own the filestore at the NFS server

$ chown open-xchange:open-xchange /var/opt/filestore

Configure the NFS server to provide this directory to both Open-Xchange Server nodes in read and write mode. Enter the uid and gid of the open-xchange user to the NFS export.

$ vim /etc/exports
/var/opt/filestore 10.20.30.213(rw,no_subtree_check,all_squash,anonuid=1001,anongid=1001) 10.20.30.215(rw,no_subtree_check,all_squash,anonuid=1001,anongid=1001)

Make the changes effective to the running NFS server

$ exportfs -a

Installation of NFS clients

Both Open-Xchange Server machines are NFS clients since they mount the distributed file storage. It's critical that both Open-Xchange Server nodes can access the same filestorage since due to session load balancing it is possible that a user logs in to either one Open-Xchange Server.

Install required NFS client packages on both Open-Xchange Server nodes

$ apt-get install nfs-common portmap

Create mountpoints for the filestore at both Open-Xchange Server nodes

$ mkdir /var/opt/filestore/

Open-Xchange Server runs as user open-xchange, to let this user access the filestore, create a user account at all Open-Xchange Server nodes. NFS will map the user id (uid) and group id (gid) to the ones at the NFS server, therefor they need to be equal at the Open-Xchange Server nodes and the NFS Server.

$ useradd open-xchange
$ grep open-xchange /etc/passwd
open-xchange:x:1001:1001::/home/open-xchange:/bin/sh

Add the NFS storage to the fstab configuration file to mount the storage automatically on boot at both Open-Xchange Server nodes

$ vim /etc/fstab
10.20.30.217:/var/opt/filestore  /var/opt/filestore  nfs  defaults  0  0

Testing the distributed file storage

Mount the filestore manually on both Open-Xchange Server nodes to check if the connection works properly

$ mount /var/opt/filestore

To test the distributed storage, create a file on one Open-Xchange Server node as user open-xchange

$ su open-xchange
$ touch /var/opt/filestore/foo

Then check if the file is available and writeable at the other node also as user open-xchange

$ su open-xchange
$ ls -la /var/opt/filestore
$ rm /var/opt/filestore/foo

Session load balancing

Since configuration of system services for the corresponding operating system is already described at the general installation guides, this guide will focus on the specialties when creating a distributing setup. Please refer to the installation guides for configuration that is not mentioned in this guide.

The web server on this setup is a pure frontend server. This means it takes and responds to requests sent by a client but it does not contain any groupware logic. All requests are forwarded to the Open-Xchange Servers through the AJP13 protocol. The configuration will allow round-robin session load balancing, basically both Open-Xchange servers are configured as backends for answering requests with an 50:50 probability of being chosen. Once a new session is created, that session is bound to the groupware server it has been created.

For the web server we only need a very small set of packages, basically only packages that starts with open-xchange-gui where most of additional packages are languagespacks or plugins. Add the Open-Xchange software repository to the package manager configuration first. Then install the open-xchange-gui package to the web server.

$ apt-get install open-xchange-gui open-xchange-configjump-generic-gui

This will install the Open-Xchange user interface, Apache 2 and several services as dependency. The Apache module proxy_ajp will handle all the communication with the Open-Xchange Servers. Its configuration also contains the setup of the session balancing. What it basically does is defining two backend nodes and forwarding servlet paths to them based on the loadfactor. This setting can be customized in case the backend servers are not equal in terms of performance. The route property is important, it specifies a unique ID of a backend server and will be used when setting up Open-Xchange Servers later. Please see the Apache mod_proxy_ajp documentation for more details.

$ vim /etc/apache2/conf.d/proxy_ajp.conf

<IfModule mod_proxy_ajp.c>
  ProxyRequests On
  ProxyVia On

  <Proxy *>
    Order deny,allow
    Allow from all
  </Proxy>

  <Proxy balancer://oxcluster>
    BalancerMember ajp://10.20.30.213:8009 smax=0 ttl=60 retry=5 loadfactor=50 route=OX-1
    BalancerMember ajp://10.20.30.215:8009 smax=0 ttl=60 retry=5 loadfactor=50 route=OX-2
  </Proxy>

  ProxyPass /ajax balancer://oxcluster/ajax stickysession=JSESSIONID
  ProxyPass /servlet balancer://oxcluster/servlet stickysession=JSESSIONID
  ProxyPass /axis2 balancer://oxcluster/axis2 stickysession=JSESSIONID
  ProxyPass /infostore balancer://oxcluster/infostore stickysession=JSESSIONID
  ProxyPass /publications balancer://oxcluster/publications stickysession=JSESSIONID
  ProxyPass /Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync balancer://oxcluster/Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync stickysession=JSESSIONID
</IfModule>

Restart the Apache 2 web server and check if it is possible to connect with a browser. By default, this configuration allows plain HTTP access. In order to offer privacy to the customer the connection must be secured by a HTTPS connection based on a valid certificate. It is also recommended to set a redirect for all plain HTTP connections to use HTTPS.