Clustering Plugin?

Protollix

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Joined
Apr 24, 2004
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59
Just trying to gauge what the interest would be in a clustering plugin for DA.

Listed below are some of the basic requirement I have come up with thus far that I personally would like to see.

I named the (potential) plugin 'Direct Control'. I don't know if this would conflict with anything the DA devs have in progress. if so, I apologize and will rename it.

I just copied my project requirements so it has some "non-functional" things as well...
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Below are listed, in a very rough and basic form, the known requirements for Direct Control. Below, we refer to Master and Slave servers. However, we refer to them in two somewhat different contexts.

* Master and Slave servers are defined as Master Direct Cluster and Slave Direct Cluster servers
* Master DNS and Slave DNS servers are defined as Master and Slave DNS servers, such as in use by the BIND Name Daemon.

Installation and License Control

* Installation shall be performed through the Direct Admin plugin interface
* Licensing shall be handled by IONCube's Pro Encoder runtime restriction features
* Each encoded copy of Direct Cluster shall only be able to run on ONE IP Address.
* Each server shall have a seperate purchased license

Setup

* The admin shall designate if this is the master server or a slave server
* The admin shall be able to see a list of all server's in the cluster from any installation
* The admin shall be able to add a new server to the cluster from any installation

DNS Clustering

* The program shall allow the administrator to designate which servers should act as slave DNS servers for other DNS servers in the cluster
* The program shall modify the named.conf file to included one servername.conf file for each master DNS server this server is a DNS slave for
* The program shall allow the master DNS servers to push DNS config files to designated slave servers
* The program shall allow slave servers to request DNS config files from their master server
* The program shall provide the ability to install and edit cron jobs to push and/or retrieve DNS config files

Package Clustering

* The program shall allow slave servers to inherit reseller and/or client packages from the main server

Account Clustering

* The program shall provide the means to easily transfer one account from one server to another
* The program shall provide the means to easily move an account from one reseller to another, even across servers.

Edited because I don't know how to spell gauge
 
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I think this could be a good short-term solution until DA has this feature. But I'm not sure how many people will pay for it (depending on the cost) because DirectAdmin has plans to add this feature sometime in the future.
 
Hmm, well maybe I will wait then.

I was originally intending just to make a quick way to copy DNS config entries to a slave server so that I didn't have to manually add them.

Good point though. I wonder when they plan to implement this?
 
I read this with a lot of intrest, but i am not entirely sure if making a product that's already on the DA roadmap is profitable.

Personally i can say we're going to need extensive cluster support soon, paying isn't a real problem, as long as the support is good, and it isn't TOO expensive.

But i don't know how others will think about it.


What i personally dislike about this, is the licenses needed for slave servers, why not make a incube version that automatically goes into slave mode and only with a valid license will enter master mode. That way setting up slaves is easier, and more admins might be interested in the product.
 
Don't let me discourage you though! I'd still be interested in this plugin since it could be a year or possibly even more until DA has this feature and a interim would be nice. Although I wouldn't want to pay much though since its not a long term solution, maybe free :D
 
Okay, let's try to understand what's being said here.

One recent poster has said he's interested but things there shouldn't be a requirement that multiple servers each have licenses.

Another has said that he'd appreciate a free solution.

Heck, I'd love both of these.

But let's face it... where's the incentive for anyone to create it?

And then once creating it, share the product of such a long creation curve for nothing?

Anyone want to do it? I'm certainly willing to use a free solution when it's ready :p .

Jeff
 
I have considered doing it for free. It is something I personally would like to have and if I develop it for me, I would release it in some form.

At the most, it would have a nominal fee.
 
It's like the better mousetrap, then, or maybe the ballfield:

"build it and they will come"

:)

Jeff
 
Protollix said:
I have considered doing it for free. It is something I personally would like to have and if I develop it for me, I would release it in some form.

At the most, it would have a nominal fee.

You could always setup a donation area, I'd donate for a product like that.
 
"build it and they will come"

I love that movie Jeff :)

A really good plugin to do all of the above would be great and I'm sure something that folks would pay for (one time fee's are probably good with updates being provided at fairly regular intervals) - it's a large project and one that would take a lot of keeping up with most likely, if you charge for it then the development will continue when you think you have finished it.. forever ! :)
 
Well I'm for such a plugin system. I know many seem to think such features are on the DA roadmap, but I have seen no evidence of DA doing anything in terms of clustering. It could be years before such a system is released by DA.
 
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rldev said:
Well I'm for such a plugin system. I know many seem to think such features are on the DA roadmap, but I have seen no evidence of DA doing anything in terms of clustering. It could be years before such a system is released by DA.
If it really would be years, it will most likely be released earlier by someone willing to contribute to the community. Like the spamblocker system or the current DNS sync system that's in beta at the moment.

I can't imagine this taking up more than 1 or 2 years if developed by server admins, although I don't know if John would like it ;).
 
Since DA is a closed-source statically compiiled C++ program I don't see how anyone could convert it to use server clustering.

Jeff
 
Well, I would think it would not be too hard to have a way to tell the DA machine that MySQL or mail is on this server not local. That way when someone creates a MySQL DB or a new mail account it is made on the remote server rather than local.

DA would not be installed on the remote systems it would just use them for that rescource.

It would be nice to have this ability.
 
Yes, it would be very nice.

My point was in reply to the previous post; I don't see how anyone besides the JBMC staff could do it since DirectAdmin is a closed source C++ program.

Jeff
 
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