This test configuration uses 4 computers within the same network to test the load balacing service of two FTP/Web servers, using direct server return (DSR) setting of BalanceNG.

Overall layout

Hardware

Role	Device Name	IP address	Ethernet port	Status
Switch	gsw4	-
Actual server	web1	192.168.10.220	eth0	active FTP/web server
Actual server	web2	192.168.10.213	eth0	active FTP/web server
Load balancer	archie	192.168.10.119	eth0, eth1	active command line Linux OS
Visitor (client)	wendy	192.168.10.201	eth0	active with web browser

Server setting

    HTTP server setting

    Web page location:        /var/www/http/index.html  
    Change file permission:  chmod -R a+r *
    Start the server:             service httpd start
    More about Web server configuration check here

    FTP server setting

    Start the server: service vsftpd start
    More about FTP config check here

    Test connections

        HTTP: using web browser and key in the IP address of the particular web server
        FTP:   using ftp or lftp, the commend line FTP, and key in the IP address of the particular FTP server

Download and Installation of BalanceNG

BalanceNG Dowland page: https://www.inlab.de/balanceng/download.html
The BalanceNG package is download on archie at the root folder

Version:
BalanceNG Release 2.130 (Linux "tarball" distribution)
MD5: 709b822babdac68046fb52a6138eaa1a

Installation example on Linux (please consult manual for details):

# tar xvfz BalanceNG-2.130-Linux-x86.tar.gz
# cp ./BalanceNG-2.094/bng /bin       (copy to bin so by key in bng it will excute)
# ln -s /bin/bng /etc/rc5.d/S11bng   (make link, so the file run when boot)
# ln -s /bin/bng /etc/init.d/bng      (make link, recommended by the manual)

Start BalanceNG

Now we are ready to start BalanceNG just by key in the following line:
# bng start
BalanceNG: starting up ...

Other command, refer to BalanceNG cheatsheet.

Configuration: Direct Server Return (DSR) double nodes setup

This simple "Direct Server Return" example is modified from BalanceNG website example DSR single node setup. It is the starting point of test setup. This example is fully operational with the free BalanceNG Basic Trial License.

Configuration at both actural server

1. Set up virtural server
At web1:
At web2:

(after that ifconfig show they(lo:0) are up. This IP address is the virtural server address. )

2. ARP setting
At both (Normally the arp_ignore file has the value 0, and arp_annouce file has the value 0.)

Note if the above is not appropriate, when start bng there might be various errors occurs in the log file.

Configuration at balancer

1. Naming convention of bng.conf
BlanceNG allows multiple instances (setting) in one balancer. Therefore by naming the configuration files differently you can balance different network traffic.

By default, bng.conf is instance 0. Use
to start it.

bng1.conf is instance 1. So when this configuration is needed, we can use
to start it.

2. Web server balancing at port 80
Copy the configuration file bng1.conf to /etc
The content of bng.conf is as following:


Some more explanation on the General Configuration guide.

3. FTP server balancing at port 20, 21

Note: Here we specify the port is 20 and 21 where 21 is the command port and 20 is the data port. This is an active FTP mood.  Therefore in the FTP configuration file we must have passive mood disable. The sample FTP config file:
/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf

Copy the configuration file bng2.conf to /etc
The content of bng.conf is as following:

Testing

Now start bng and show configuration:

Get into bng control and we can do:

Other commands:


The server is virtural. And we can ping it from wendy, web1 and web2.
And if key in 192.168.10.20 from wendy, you can see either web1 page or web2 page.

Similarly, we can start the FTP balancing configuration by using: