Re: hidden interface (ARP) 2.4.20

Roberto Nibali
2002-12-05T22:44:13Z

Hello,

First I would like to ask people not to post such patches to lkml but
rather to the LVS list, because this affects only LVS so far and we
cover all kernel versions pretty much up to date. Julian just needs to
do the s/__constant_htons/htons/ fixes and upload the changes to his site ;)

The inclusion of the hidden feature has been discussed almost to death
on netdev (where these questions should have gone in the first place)
and it was decided against inclusion of this patch for various reasons.

Phil Oester wrote:
> So we should enable netfilter for all x-hundred webservers we have? Or play games with routing tables?

Yes. What is the problem? You need to setup the x-hundred webservers
anyway, 2 routing entry lines certainly won't hurt. Yes, I understand
that if you're in process of upgrading your webservers from 2.2.x to
2.4.x this is a bit of an additional pain. There are also other
solutions to this arp problem, but please address this on the LVS
mailinglist.

> Why was something which:
>
> a) works
> b) was present in 2.2.xx kernels
> c) is trivial to include and doesn't seem to 'hurt' anything
>
> ripped from 2.4 kernels?

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=95743539800002&r=1&w=2

> What some people fail to grasp is that _many_ people in the real world are using
> the hidden flag in load balancing scenarios for its simplicity.
> Removing it (without any particularly valid reason that anyone is
> aware of) doesn't make much sense.

Depends if it was a hack before that shouldn't have been there in the
first place. In an evolutionary process things get optimized ... as has
happened with the network stack code.

> -Phil
>
> p.s. flame away, Dave

Search the LVS and the netdev archives for constructive discussions
about it. No need to flame anyone. But hey, if people keep coming up
with this, DaveM and Alexey might get weak and put it back in 2.5.x :)

Best regards,
Roberto Nibali, ratz
--
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