mod_rewrite and clustering

Any issues?

[sugarkane]

I have a project over the next few months to bring our hosting in-house.

I am looking at using Apache's rewrite and proxy modules to provide a means of load sharing and resilience by randomly choosing from a cluster of mirrored servers.

I have understood (I think ;) the way to do it, but I suddenly had an awful thought: will this be detectable in any way to SEs ie will the http responses be any different?

I do not use cloaking as our rankings are mainly based on theming and link pop, so I'd hate to set any alarm bells ringing, as I understand that mod_rewrite is widely used for cloaking?

I'd hugely welcome any comments from anyone who's attempted this kind of thing.

Thanks :)

[littleman]

I can't say I've done it but many of mod_rewrite's functions happen behind the sense. That is *why* people incorporate it into their cloaking systems.

[sugarkane]

Thanks littleman, I thought that was the case.

It's the proxy side of it that worries me slightly, but I have no hard info.

I think I'm probably just being a bit jumpy about it all :)

[littleman]

[devshed.com ]
You've probably have seen this...
But if not, look under the "Clustering with Apache" heading.

[sugarkane]

Yep, this was the model I've been working off, but thanks anyway. I actually bought the book (shock! horror!).

The rewrite method seems like a nice solution which I plan to finesse with dual proxies amd scripts to enable selection of only 'alive' servers etc.

Has anyone had any experience with the DNS methods mentioned?

[DaveAtIFG]

If you haven't seen it you may find this [engelschall.com] useful. If I understand what I've read correctly there and in the Apache docs, you can make these redirects visible or transparent to visitors depending on how you implement them.

[sugarkane]

Thanks!
Extremely useful :)

[DaveAtIFG]

I assumed you have them, but if not here's [apache.org] the Apache docs.