Linux Virtual Server (LVS) Project

Joseph Mack

jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net

Sep 2007

Table of Contents

1. Linux Virtual Server (LVS)

1. Linux Virtual Server (LVS)

The Linux Virtual Server (LVS) Project is a GPL'ed layer 4 router for Linux, which allows you to combine low cost servers (e.g. web, database) into a single highly available, high throughput server.

LVS-HOWTOs.
presentations
- A talk on LVS at the Linux Expo 1999, in Raleigh, NC, USA. For more info, see the page on meetings of LVS people.
- A presentation to the North Carolina Systems Administrators on 14 Jun 1999.
- A talk at Software Freedom Day at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 14 Sep 2007. Here's the version I presented to the audience and here's the version I used. Here's the tarball (source, and power point images). Please feel free to use any of the material for your talk on LVS.
Analysis of the performance of a single realserver LVS (Jun 2000).
The first (and only) LVS trivia quiz (with answers) (Jul 2002).
This was written to co-incide with Wensong's talk at the Ottawa Linux Symposium 19-22 Jul 2000. People on the mailing list were given the week of the conference to do the quiz and answers were given out on our return.
LVS T-shirt iron-ons (for the fashion concious LVS'er) and images for buttons or stick-ons that you can put on your LVS boxes pdf files.
The latest version of my configure script v0.9.4 (Oct 2002).
This script is designed to set up a simple LVS (one director, multiple realserver with realserver failover), with emphasis on error checking and speed of setup. It is for people setting up their first LVS who want an LVS that's guaranteed to work. I used it for all my LVS testing described in the HOWTOs. The script was valuable for being able to change the installation, number and types of services, schedulers and forwarding methods, with minimal effort. Subsequently more sophisticated methods for setting up production LVSs, e.g. UltraMonkey and Keepalived, with director failover, have become available (see the LVS-HOWTOs for more info).
I still suggest this configure script for people who are starting with LVS, who don't want to set it up from the command line. In view of the availability of UltraMonkey and Keepalived for production systems, I will not be developing configure-lvs any further.
People involved with LVS occassionally meet at conferences. Our favorite is the Ottawa Linux Symposium. Here's some notes taken from some of our meetings.