[Samba] Smbd file server and ctdb

[Martin Schwenke]

Hi Dave,

On Fri, 15 Sep 2023 22:36:58 +0000, bd730c5053df9efb via samba
<samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:

> I've been testing a clusterized samba file server with ctdb and
> glusterfs as documented on the wiki trying to get a high availability
> and load balancing solution and I'm coming to the realization that
> just samba, ctdb and glusterfs provide only the high availability
> part and that it's necessary to add lvs into the solution to achieve
> the load balancing part. Is this correct?

That depends what you mean by load balancing.

If you mean dynamic load balancing, where each node's dynamic system
state is taken into account, then CTDB does not do that.

CTDB does static load balancing via public IP addresses
(https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Adding_public_IP_addresses) or
virtual IPs (VIPs).  The IPs are distributed evenly to clients by using
round robin DNS, but no attempt is made to look at the dynamic state
of the nodes. This works well in most cases because the workload for
each client connection tends to be uniform.

CTDB can also be configured to use LVS, but it isn't as well tested or
documented as the public IPs approach.

peace & happiness,
martin