High Availability & Load Balance on AWS

[ragu1059]

Hi there,

So I've read through most of the threads on here regarding HA and LB with cPanel and how this feature is not supported (cPanel needs to catch up!).

I also know a service 'AUTOM8N' does what I need, however, I wanted to see if I can do this myself before relying on a 3rd party to future proof it.

I have an EC2 instance on AWS with a master WHM/cPanel account and I have another EC2 instance with a DNS ONLY cPanel server with both of them linked via WHM DNS Clustering.

My emails are external, I use an external MySQL (RDS on AWS) and all my LB will ideally be done through AWS as well.

I'm using EFS (NFS mounted drive) on both servers under the directory /home so they both have the same files.

My only problem is on the slave server, how do I point domains/use the DNS zones that are synced via the cluster feature to point to the same file directories?

The idea is the slaves work WITHOUT WHM/cPanel and just use Apache & PHP to run the files (emails and MySQL is external so no issues there).

If anyone has done something like this, please shed some light here!

Thanks in advance.

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @ragu1059


While there may be some folks that can help with this, ultimately this is more of a system administration issue. If you need one you might find someone here: System Administration Services

 

[ragu1059]

So if i create a vhost file and add my domain name and directory, it actually works!

Which means i need to find a way to either sync the vhost files between servers or automatically generate it on the slave servers.

 

[schoeps]

Looking to do this as well, Ragu1059, would you want to chat through some solutions offline?

 

[ragu1059]

Hi Schoeps,

I've actually managed this solution but it's mainly based on AWS so it's quite expensive.

In summary:

Master server = cPanel
Slave server(s) = LAMP stack

Syncthing between servers (just user directory, SSL folder and Vhost generation script using WHM API)

External DB, in my case RDS database using WHM's external MYSQL profiles.

It's a manual and painful process but i'm afraid it needs to be done as WHM are well behind when it comes to high availability.

 

[schoeps]

Thank you very much for writing back, I appreciate it! Great solution, too complex for me

 

[WorkinOnIt]

Just another example of how cPanel continues to bury its head in the sand.

The community has been asking for YEARS for a method to be able to run a HA / failover / LB solution

:sadface

 

[cPanelLauren]

Just another example of how cPanel continues to bury its head in the sand.

The community has been asking for YEARS for a method to be able to run a HA / failover / LB solution

:sadface

The feature requests on this have been seeing a lot of attention internally lately - I'd suggest you relay your concerns there.

https://features.cpanel.net/topic/active-active-redundancy-or-high-availability

https://features.cpanel.net/topic/built-in-load-balancing-replication-high-availability

 

[WorkinOnIt]

The feature requests on this have been seeing a lot of attention internally lately - I'd suggest you relay your concerns there.

https://features.cpanel.net/topic/active-active-redundancy-or-high-availability

https://features.cpanel.net/topic/built-in-load-balancing-replication-high-availability

Oh come on, don't be a tease, give us something more than that. Those requests have been around almost a decade and we get a little promise every 3 years.

 

[WorkinOnIt]

We just need a way to be able to easily set up server replication - so that we can put a load balancer or floating IP in front :-0

 

[andrew.n]

AUTOM8N is no longer being maintained as far as I know fyi.

 

[cPanelLauren]

Oh come on, don't be a tease, give us something more than that. Those requests have been around almost a decade and we get a little promise every 3 years.

Yea I know. It's a pretty popular request and I do know that the move to being more modular (DNS, Mail, MySQL profiles etc.) is a part of making this happen. I also know that those feature requests are supposed to be updated soon since the process of managing them is being reworked to better address them and provide clarity.

I'll see if the product owner for that section of the product has anything official to note on that and get back to you as well. But I have to note (not that this is the case here) that just because there's a feature request there doesn't mean it's something that will become a part of the product no matter how many votes it gets. Sometimes it's just not feasible - in this case though and all instances where something is highly requested I believe transparency on what is planned and what our current stage is, would be valuable to everyone.

 

[gnusys]

AUTOM8N is no longer being maintained as far as I know fyi.

I am the Developer of AUTOM8N plugin and afaik, the plugin is fully active. Not sure where you get the info that it is unmaintained!

 

[andrew.n]

I have asked this maybe 1-2 years ago in a ticket and I was told due to lack of interest it's no longer being maintained but I'm happy to see that the plugin is still active and can be used.

 

[WorkinOnIt]

I am the Developer of AUTOM8N plugin and afaik, the plugin is fully active. Not sure where you get the info that it is unmaintained!

Hey @gnusys - this is the first time I've ever heard of AUTOM8N and I've been seeking HA solutions for cpanel for many years - so why is it so under the radar? You need a new marketing manager ;-) I am surprised that cPanel or other users don't mention it anywhere.

Anyway, certainly looks interesting, I will take a good look.

I still think this should be a native offering from cPanel - maybe you can collab !