Peter Johnson wrote:
Nix, I am fully aware of all of this (regarding security permissions
etc) ... I am not trying to solve a problem but rather open a
discussion with the community on how people prefer to structure their
systems. Some run only Tomcat, some run multiple servers with Apache
and Tomcat, some tier the Apache and Tomcat services.
I was trying to open a discussion as to what people do and why.
And you did :-) I'm sorry if my reply sounded grumpy (did it?). I guess
I misinterpreted your intention for open discussion.
My approach is usually to run Apache and Tomcat in separate tiers as I
feel the ~50-100ms delay introduced by doing so is negligible to the
security gains. I also feel that aspects of data management etc are
easier and more secure under this approach. I use the Apache layer to
handle SSL termination, compression, URL rewriting and caching leaving
the application and Tomcat clean to perform the business logic. This
is just my opinion though.
OK. I run TC standalone in test environment, but our production server
has Apache front-end coupled via mod_jk2 (at that time, JK2 was thought
to inherit the throne) with TC. The versions of the software are a bit
out of date, but I cannot upgrade at this moment.
If you separate Apache tier from the TC tier, you can impose more strict
security rules on the system and make it easier for you to isolate a
compromized system. I totally agrre with your reasons for running Apache
as a front-end. What you need is really best done with Apache and that
was my reasoning, as well. Not to forget that running TC as non-root
user and binding to TCP:80 has it's amount of work. Plus, I wanted to
have GSSAPI authentication and TC cannot do that. I guess nobody is even
considering implementing that in TC. And why should they? If both Apache
and IIS can hadle it transparently to TC, that is the way to go.
Personally, I'd go for N+M solution. I'd start with one Apache box and
one or two TC boxes and see how they handle load. I'd be ready to throw
in additional servers as demand grows. The reason why I said two TCs is,
well, it would be nice to have configs ready and tested for clustering.
Without clustering TCs I don't think you can a cluster wide session.
That would mean no load balancing as well.
Whether or not to go for load balancing depends on how well, or if at
all, you can partition and devide your applications. You could dedicate
one TC for one app and the otehr for app2. That could lead TC servers
being unequally utilised, of course.
I think that the best approach is to put your IS on paper, plan ahead
and implement it, but be prepared to add, remove, change and, generally,
refactor your solution. Same applies to building Java (or any other)
applications. That is a pro-active approach that will win.
Nix.
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