Problem with DNS lookup caching in reverse proxy

2011-05-13 Thread Wijn.org

Tnks,

I found it in my Spambox


Met vriendelijke groet,
Gilbert van Houten

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On 13-mei-2011, at 11:19, slawomir.jano...@postfinance.ch wrote:

Hi everybody,

I'm happy to announce that I was now able to find a solution to this  
problem which seems to work for me.
I would like to discuss my solution with you experts for possible  
corrections and/or improvements.


1. As I didn't find any place where I could put an arbitrarily  
executed timer, I decided to go with a Boolean option to enable/ 
disable the DNS address issue resolving.


2. I have put the handling code into the function  
ap_proxy_release_connection() of module proxy_util.c


3. The code makes a call to apr_sockaddr_info_get() to check if the  
destination address has changed. If it has changed, the change is  
propagated to all places I thought to be relevant and then the  
connection in question is marked as being due to be closed. This is  
the code I came up with:


if (dnsto) {
apr_status_t return_value;
const char *hostname = conn->worker->hostname;
const apr_port_t port = conn->worker->port;
apr_sockaddr_t *old_sock_addr = conn->addr;
apr_sockaddr_t *new_sock_addr;
apr_pool_t *pool;
return_value = apr_pool_create(&pool, conn->pool);
/*
 * Obtain the currently valid address from the OS
 */
	apr_sockaddr_info_get(&new_sock_addr, hostname, APR_UNSPEC, port, 0,  
pool);

get_addr(old_address, old_sock_addr);
get_addr(new_address, new_sock_addr);
ap_log_error(APLOG_MARK, APLOG_DEBUG, 0, s,
"proxy: ip of connection is %pI, the current resolved ip is 
%pI",
old_sock_addr, new_sock_addr);
if (strcmp(old_address, new_address)) {
ap_log_error(APLOG_MARK, APLOG_INFO, 0, s,
			"proxy: Invalidating the connection due to change in dns resolved  
address.");

/*
 * If the address has changed, store the changed
 * address in all relevant places and mark the
 * connection as due to be closed.
 */
conn->worker->cp->addr = new_sock_addr;
conn->addr = new_sock_addr;
conn->connection->remote_addr = new_sock_addr;
conn->close = 1;
}
}

This code is located right before the call to connection_cleanup()
The get_addr() function isn't really necessary and is used here just  
for debugging purposes. The comparison (at the moment a strcmp())  
could easily be replaced by a check based on the equality of the two  
apr_sockaddr_t-s.


The code as presented here has been tested on Linux. I hope, although  
I didn't test it yet, that it also will work on Solaris, as this is  
my real target platform. With this hack, as soon as the DNS resolver  
switches the ip address of the target, all the connections in the  
proxy being released are checked and marked to be closed. They are  
rebuilt at the time of the next access with the new address. This  
results in a correct switch-over. Backed up with the already possible  
smax=0 and ttl=30 settings I have a double-strategy where all active  
connections are closed more or less immediately (as soon as they are  
released), while all less active connections are "garbage collected"  
by the normal connection inactivity timeout. This is exactly what I  
want to achieve.


There are still some questions, though:
A. Is this the right place to put such a check?
B. Is it possible to have a timer to do this check instead?
C. Is the pool handling correct or does it lead to a memory leak?
D. Is the method to clean up and close the connections with obsolete  
ip addresses (the last four lines of the code above) the right approach?


Thanks for any help.
Regards
Slawo.

-Ursprüngliche Nachricht-
Von: Janotta Slawomir Richard, PF54 extern
Gesendet: Montag, 2. Mai 2011 11:26
An: i.ga...@brainsware.org; dev@httpd.apache.org
Betreff: AW: Problem with DNS lookup caching in reverse proxy

Hi Igor and everybody :-)
Unfortunately, this is exactly what won't work for me.
The point is: In our case the remote address is still valid. The  
"old" node is not to be shut down so the connection to it is  
technically still valid. Instead, the full qualified address if  
looked up via the resolver now points to a "new" node. If I'm  
correct, in this case there won't be any error. And if there is a lot  
of traffic on the connection, there also won't be any timeout and the  
connection will be happy accessing the "old" node because it simply  
uses the stored ip-address and doesn't see any reason to discard it.  
If I set ttl to say 1 second (way too small for me in fact

RE: Problem with DNS lookup caching in reverse proxy

2011-05-13 Thread slawomir.janotta
Hi everybody,

I'm happy to announce that I was now able to find a solution to this problem 
which seems to work for me.
I would like to discuss my solution with you experts for possible corrections 
and/or improvements.

1. As I didn't find any place where I could put an arbitrarily executed timer, 
I decided to go with a Boolean option to enable/disable the DNS address issue 
resolving.

2. I have put the handling code into the function ap_proxy_release_connection() 
of module proxy_util.c

3. The code makes a call to apr_sockaddr_info_get() to check if the destination 
address has changed. If it has changed, the change is propagated to all places 
I thought to be relevant and then the connection in question is marked as being 
due to be closed. This is the code I came up with:

if (dnsto) {
apr_status_t return_value;
const char *hostname = conn->worker->hostname;
const apr_port_t port = conn->worker->port;
apr_sockaddr_t *old_sock_addr = conn->addr;
apr_sockaddr_t *new_sock_addr;
apr_pool_t *pool;
return_value = apr_pool_create(&pool, conn->pool);
/*
 * Obtain the currently valid address from the OS
 */
apr_sockaddr_info_get(&new_sock_addr, hostname, APR_UNSPEC, port, 0, 
pool);
get_addr(old_address, old_sock_addr);
get_addr(new_address, new_sock_addr);
ap_log_error(APLOG_MARK, APLOG_DEBUG, 0, s,
"proxy: ip of connection is %pI, the current resolved 
ip is %pI",
old_sock_addr, new_sock_addr);
if (strcmp(old_address, new_address)) {
ap_log_error(APLOG_MARK, APLOG_INFO, 0, s,
"proxy: Invalidating the connection due to change in 
dns resolved address.");
/*
 * If the address has changed, store the changed
 * address in all relevant places and mark the
 * connection as due to be closed.
 */
conn->worker->cp->addr = new_sock_addr;
conn->addr = new_sock_addr;
conn->connection->remote_addr = new_sock_addr;
conn->close = 1;
}
}

This code is located right before the call to connection_cleanup()
The get_addr() function isn't really necessary and is used here just for 
debugging purposes. The comparison (at the moment a strcmp()) could easily be 
replaced by a check based on the equality of the two apr_sockaddr_t-s.

The code as presented here has been tested on Linux. I hope, although I didn't 
test it yet, that it also will work on Solaris, as this is my real target 
platform. With this hack, as soon as the DNS resolver switches the ip address 
of the target, all the connections in the proxy being released are checked and 
marked to be closed. They are rebuilt at the time of the next access with the 
new address. This results in a correct switch-over. Backed up with the already 
possible smax=0 and ttl=30 settings I have a double-strategy where all active 
connections are closed more or less immediately (as soon as they are released), 
while all less active connections are "garbage collected" by the normal 
connection inactivity timeout. This is exactly what I want to achieve.

There are still some questions, though:
A. Is this the right place to put such a check?
B. Is it possible to have a timer to do this check instead?
C. Is the pool handling correct or does it lead to a memory leak?
D. Is the method to clean up and close the connections with obsolete ip 
addresses (the last four lines of the code above) the right approach?

Thanks for any help.
Regards
Slawo.

-Ursprüngliche Nachricht-
Von: Janotta Slawomir Richard, PF54 extern 
Gesendet: Montag, 2. Mai 2011 11:26
An: i.ga...@brainsware.org; dev@httpd.apache.org
Betreff: AW: Problem with DNS lookup caching in reverse proxy

Hi Igor and everybody :-)
Unfortunately, this is exactly what won't work for me.
The point is: In our case the remote address is still valid. The "old" node is 
not to be shut down so the connection to it is technically still valid. 
Instead, the full qualified address if looked up via the resolver now points to 
a "new" node. If I'm correct, in this case there won't be any error. And if 
there is a lot of traffic on the connection, there also won't be any timeout 
and the connection will be happy accessing the "old" node because it simply 
uses the stored ip-address and doesn't see any reason to discard it. If I set 
ttl to say 1 second (way too small for me in fact) and the connection is 
accessed every 100ms, there is no way to timeout the connection. The only 
solution I can think of is to force the expiry after a set timeout.
Having said that I would like to ask some additional help with implementing 
such a solution. U

AW: Problem with DNS lookup caching in reverse proxy

2011-05-02 Thread slawomir.janotta
Hi Igor and everybody :-)
Unfortunately, this is exactly what won't work for me.
The point is: In our case the remote address is still valid. The "old" node is 
not to be shut down so the connection to it is technically still valid. 
Instead, the full qualified address if looked up via the resolver now points to 
a "new" node. If I'm correct, in this case there won't be any error. And if 
there is a lot of traffic on the connection, there also won't be any timeout 
and the connection will be happy accessing the "old" node because it simply 
uses the stored ip-address and doesn't see any reason to discard it. If I set 
ttl to say 1 second (way too small for me in fact) and the connection is 
accessed every 100ms, there is no way to timeout the connection. The only 
solution I can think of is to force the expiry after a set timeout.
Having said that I would like to ask some additional help with implementing 
such a solution. Unfortunately, I'm pretty new to Apache and have to work it 
out "the hard way". So far I have worked out how to enable the additional 
parameter for the mod_proxy. I have done it by adding the setting dnsto (for 
DNS timeout) to the structure proxy_worker in mod_proxy.h. The question is: 
where can I register the timeout to be used and how do I force the worker to 
re-resolve the address.
Regards
Slawo.

-Ursprüngliche Nachricht-
Von: Igor Galić [mailto:i.ga...@brainsware.org] 
Gesendet: Dienstag, 26. April 2011 23:45
An: dev@httpd.apache.org
Betreff: Re: Problem with DNS lookup caching in reverse proxy



- Original Message -
> Hello everybody,
> 
> I have tried to solve my issue by contacting the users@ mailing list
> but meanwhile I think this is the more appropriate list to address
> it.
> I have issues with the mod_proxy resolving a full qualified
> servername via DNS and caching it in its connection pool so a change
> in the resolver doesn't get noticed by mod_proxy. After trying all
> the different possibilities that came to mind I'm back at where it
> all started.
> I still cannot find a solution to the problem that mod_proxy caches
> the IP address resolved by DNS and thus doesn't acknowledge all
> changes to it. With the help of Igor Galić on the users@ mailing
> list and by means of Bug Report 50551 I am able to get about 95% of
> the cases solved. But there still are cases where the resolved
> address won't be changed.
> But first let me describe the configuration more deeply:
> 
> What we have is a configuration where the Apache Reverse Proxy (RPX)
> is used to allow transparent switch of the backend JEE server. We
> solve this by configuring an alias to the service on the backend.
> The alias is then entered in whatever DNS resolver we use to point
> to the one system which is currently meant to receive the request.
> This allows us to make application changes on one system while the
> other is still working, then transparently switching to the updates
> server to do maintenance on the other.
> 
> Now the problem with this is that Apache, or more exactly the
> mod_proxy, has a connection pool mechanism which apparently binds to
> a once resolved IP address "forever". See the type struct
> proxy_conn_pool in file mod_proxy.h or just my description in Bug
> Report 50551.
> 
> It appears to me, and I believe I was able to show this by extensive
> testing, that the member variable apr_sockaddr_t *addr /* Preparsed
> remote address info */
> in this struct is responsible for this behavior and that this
> preparsed remote address is invalidated only if the last pooled
> connection in this connection pool is timed out.
> 
> In my opinion the best solution to this problem would be to add an
> additional perameter to mod_proxy to force a renewal of the DNS
> resolve procedure for this address after a set timeout like it is
> possible in mod_weblogic. Unfortunately this is way beyond my

Instead of re-resolving after a set timeout, it would make sense
to re-resolve after a timeout occured, marking the worker in error.

The only question is: Is that the struct shared across the pool?

> capabilities at the moment to implement it myself. But I wonder why
> there seems to be no need for such an option so nobody implemented
> it yet. Perhaps there is another I'm still not aware of?
> 
> Regards
> Slawo


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Re: Problem with DNS lookup caching in reverse proxy

2011-04-26 Thread Igor Galić


- Original Message -
> Hello everybody,
>
> I have tried to solve my issue by contacting the users@ mailing list
> but meanwhile I think this is the more appropriate list to address
> it.
> I have issues with the mod_proxy resolving a full qualified
> servername via DNS and caching it in its connection pool so a change
> in the resolver doesn't get noticed by mod_proxy. After trying all
> the different possibilities that came to mind I'm back at where it
> all started.
> I still cannot find a solution to the problem that mod_proxy caches
> the IP address resolved by DNS and thus doesn't acknowledge all
> changes to it. With the help of Igor Galić on the users@ mailing
> list and by means of Bug Report 50551 I am able to get about 95% of
> the cases solved. But there still are cases where the resolved
> address won't be changed.
> But first let me describe the configuration more deeply:
>
> What we have is a configuration where the Apache Reverse Proxy (RPX)
> is used to allow transparent switch of the backend JEE server. We
> solve this by configuring an alias to the service on the backend.
> The alias is then entered in whatever DNS resolver we use to point
> to the one system which is currently meant to receive the request.
> This allows us to make application changes on one system while the
> other is still working, then transparently switching to the updates
> server to do maintenance on the other.
>
> Now the problem with this is that Apache, or more exactly the
> mod_proxy, has a connection pool mechanism which apparently binds to
> a once resolved IP address "forever". See the type struct
> proxy_conn_pool in file mod_proxy.h or just my description in Bug
> Report 50551.
>
> It appears to me, and I believe I was able to show this by extensive
> testing, that the member variable apr_sockaddr_t *addr /* Preparsed
> remote address info */
> in this struct is responsible for this behavior and that this
> preparsed remote address is invalidated only if the last pooled
> connection in this connection pool is timed out.
>
> In my opinion the best solution to this problem would be to add an
> additional perameter to mod_proxy to force a renewal of the DNS
> resolve procedure for this address after a set timeout like it is
> possible in mod_weblogic. Unfortunately this is way beyond my

Instead of re-resolving after a set timeout, it would make sense
to re-resolve after a timeout occured, marking the worker in error.

The only question is: Is that the struct shared across the pool?

> capabilities at the moment to implement it myself. But I wonder why
> there seems to be no need for such an option so nobody implemented
> it yet. Perhaps there is another I'm still not aware of?
>
> Regards
> Slawo
>
>
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Slawomir R. Janotta [mailto:s.jano...@aviope.de]
> Gesendet: Freitag, 3. Dezember 2010 16:54
> An: us...@httpd.apache.org
> Betreff: Re: [users@httpd] Problem with DNS lookup caching in reverse
> proxy
>
> >
> > Would it be a viable option for you to not use the DNS method, and
> > instead do something like:
> >
> > 
> >   BalanceMember https://backend1.mydomain.com:8080/
> >   BalanceMember https://backend1.mydomain.com:8080/ status=+H
> > 
> >
> > ProxyPass / balancer://notsohotcluster
> > ProxyPassReverse / balancer://notsohotcluster
> >
> > This will (probably) simply mitigate the DNS problem.
> >
> >
> > i
> >
> > --
> > Igor Galić
> >
> > Tel: +43 (0) 664 886 22 883
> > Mail: i.ga...@brainsware.org
> > URL: http://brainsware.org/
> >
> >
> Thank you very much, Igor.
> Indeed, your suggestion solves most of the cases where I encounter
> the
> switch-over of the backend hosts.
> However, this does *not* help in all cases, as this works only if the
> backend is no more reachable and thus an error condition occurs.
> Sometimes
> I just want to switch from one backend to the other without shutting
> any
> of them. A working TTL in the connection pool or in the DNS cache
> would be
> ideal for this.
> Perhaps I have to open a new Bug report in Bugzilla.
> Regards
> Slawo.
>
>
> Sicherheitshinweis:
> Dieses E-Mail von PostFinance ist signiert. Weitere Informationen
> finden Sie unter:
> https://www.postfinance.ch/e-signature.
> Geben Sie Ihre Sicherheitselemente niemals Dritten bekannt.

--
Igor Galić

Tel: +43 (0) 664 886 22 883
Mail: i.ga...@brainsware.org
URL: http://brainsware.org/


Problem with DNS lookup caching in reverse proxy

2011-04-19 Thread slawomir.janotta
Hello everybody,

I have tried to solve my issue by contacting the users@ mailing list but 
meanwhile I think this is the more appropriate list to address it.
I have issues with the mod_proxy resolving a full qualified servername via DNS 
and caching it in its connection pool so a change in the resolver doesn't get 
noticed by mod_proxy. After trying all the different possibilities that came to 
mind I'm back at where it all started.
I still cannot find a solution to the problem that mod_proxy caches the IP 
address resolved by DNS and thus doesn't acknowledge all changes to it. With 
the help of Igor Galić on the users@ mailing list and by means of Bug Report 
50551 I am able to get about 95% of the cases solved. But there still are cases 
where the resolved address won't be changed.
But first let me describe the configuration more deeply:

What we have is a configuration where the Apache Reverse Proxy (RPX) is used to 
allow transparent switch of the backend JEE server. We solve this by 
configuring an alias to the service on the backend. The alias is then entered 
in whatever DNS resolver we use to point to the one system which is currently 
meant to receive the request. This allows us to make application changes on one 
system while the other is still working, then transparently switching to the 
updates server to do maintenance on the other.

Now the problem with this is that Apache, or more exactly the mod_proxy, has a 
connection pool mechanism which apparently binds to a once resolved IP address 
"forever". See the type struct proxy_conn_pool in file mod_proxy.h or just my 
description in Bug Report 50551.

It appears to me, and I believe I was able to show this by extensive testing, 
that the member variable apr_sockaddr_t *addr /* Preparsed remote address info 
*/
in this struct is responsible for this behavior and that this preparsed remote 
address is invalidated only if the last pooled connection in this connection 
pool is timed out.

In my opinion the best solution to this problem would be to add an additional 
perameter to mod_proxy to force a renewal of the DNS resolve procedure for this 
address after a set timeout like it is possible in mod_weblogic. Unfortunately 
this is way beyond my capabilities at the moment to implement it myself. But I 
wonder why there seems to be no need for such an option so nobody implemented 
it yet. Perhaps there is another I'm still not aware of?

Regards
Slawo



-Ursprüngliche Nachricht-
Von: Slawomir R. Janotta [mailto:s.jano...@aviope.de] 
Gesendet: Freitag, 3. Dezember 2010 16:54
An: us...@httpd.apache.org
Betreff: Re: [users@httpd] Problem with DNS lookup caching in reverse proxy

>
> Would it be a viable option for you to not use the DNS method, and
> instead do something like:
>
> 
>   BalanceMember https://backend1.mydomain.com:8080/
>   BalanceMember https://backend1.mydomain.com:8080/ status=+H
> 
>
> ProxyPass / balancer://notsohotcluster
> ProxyPassReverse / balancer://notsohotcluster
>
> This will (probably) simply mitigate the DNS problem.
>
>
> i
>
> --
> Igor Galić
>
> Tel: +43 (0) 664 886 22 883
> Mail: i.ga...@brainsware.org
> URL: http://brainsware.org/
>
>
Thank you very much, Igor.
Indeed, your suggestion solves most of the cases where I encounter the
switch-over of the backend hosts.
However, this does *not* help in all cases, as this works only if the
backend is no more reachable and thus an error condition occurs. Sometimes
I just want to switch from one backend to the other without shutting any
of them. A working TTL in the connection pool or in the DNS cache would be
ideal for this.
Perhaps I have to open a new Bug report in Bugzilla.
Regards
Slawo.


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unter: 
https://www.postfinance.ch/e-signature.
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