Installation guide

Chapter 5.
Setting Up Apache HTTP Server
This chapter contains instructions for configuring Red Hat Enterprise Linux to make the
Apache HTTP Server highly available.
The following is an example of setting up a cluster service that fails over an Apache HTTP
Server. Although the actual variables used in the service depend on the specific configura-
tion, the example may assist in setting up a service for a particular environment.
5.1. Apache HTTP Server Setup Overview
First, configure Apache HTTP Server on all nodes in the cluster. If using a failover domain
, assign the service to all cluster nodes configured to run the Apache HTTP Server. Refer to
Section 3.8 Configuring a Failover Domain for instructions. The cluster software ensures
that only one cluster system runs the Apache HTTP Server at one time. The example con-
figuration consists of installing the httpd RPM package on all cluster nodes (or on nodes
in the failover domain, if used) and configuring a shared GFS shared resource for the Web
content.
When installing the Apache HTTP Server on the cluster systems, run the following com-
mand to ensure that the cluster nodes do not automatically start the service when the system
boots:
chkconfig --del httpd
Rather than having the system init scripts spawn the httpd daemon, the cluster infrastruc-
ture initializes the service on the active cluster node. This ensures that the corresponding
IP address and file system mounts are active on only one cluster node at a time.
When adding an httpd service, a floating IP address must be assigned to the service so
that the IP address will transfer from one cluster node to another in the event of failover or
service relocation. The cluster infrastructure binds this IP address to the network interface
on the cluster system that is currently running the Apache HTTP Server. This IP address
ensures that the cluster node running httpd is transparent to the clients accessing the
service.
The file systems that contain the Web content cannot be automatically mounted on the
shared storage resource when the cluster nodes boot. Instead, the cluster software must
mount and unmount the file system as the httpd service is started and stopped. This pre-
vents the cluster systems from accessing the same data simultaneously, which may result
in data corruption. Therefore, do not include the file systems in the /etc/fstab file.