Hi,

I am setting up 2 web servers with Apache 2 :

- both servers will respond to the same HTTP_HOST, which is www.foo.com,
but my DNS will point www to only one of those 2 servers (let's call it
server #1)

- each of the 2 servers will serve different pages.  Server #1 will have
about 20 directories under DocumentRoot as well as a few Alias directives,
which he will happily serve:
www.foo.com/directory1
www.foo.com/directory2
www.foo.com/directory3
..
..
..
www.foo.com/directory20
www.foo.com/alias1
www.foo.com/alias2

- when server #1 gets a request for something else than those directories
and aliases, I want it to redirect the request to server #2.  If possible
(but that's not mandatory), I do not want the user in front of the browser
to know that it is redirected to another server, so a request for
www.foo.com/otherdirectory will show that very address
(www.foo.com/otherdirectory) in the address bar, even though the page is
served from server #2, which is not really www.

How can I do that?  I thought of using rewrite maps on server #1, or using a
script as the ErrorDocument for 404 errors on server #1, but am unsure if
there are better ways of doing it.  I want good performance too.

Thank you.

Patrick C.
email: pcossette@aei.ca

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Maybe you can make mod_alias work first, then mod_proxy, then use proxypass
/ and make aliases of all those dirs... It's a solution, even if it's not a
clean one.. You could script it I suppose.. ErrorDocument 404 /script.php
and then making a frameset with one frame pointing to the other server?

--
// DvDmanDT
MSN: dvdmandt€hotmail.com
Mail: dvdmandt€telia.com
"Patrick Cossette" <pcossette@aei.ca> skrev i meddelandet
news:cl3rfg$jid$1@Tropolix.UQSS.UQuebec.CA...
> Hi,
>
> I am setting up 2 web servers with Apache 2 :
>
>   - both servers will respond to the same HTTP_HOST, which is www.foo.com,
> but my DNS will point www to only one of those 2 servers (let's call it
> server #1)
>
>   - each of the 2 servers will serve different pages.  Server #1 will have
> about 20 directories under DocumentRoot as well as a few Alias directives,
> which he will happily serve:
>               www.foo.com/directory1
>               www.foo.com/directory2
>               www.foo.com/directory3
>                            ...
>                            ...
>                            ...
>               www.foo.com/directory20
>               www.foo.com/alias1
>               www.foo.com/alias2
>
>   - when server #1 gets a request for something else than those
directories
> and aliases, I want it to redirect the request to server #2.  If possible
> (but that's not mandatory), I do not want the user in front of the browser
> to know that it is redirected to another server, so a request for
> www.foo.com/otherdirectory will show that very address
> (www.foo.com/otherdirectory) in the address bar, even though the page is
> served from server #2, which is not really www.
>
> How can I do that?  I thought of using rewrite maps on server #1, or using
a
> script as the ErrorDocument for 404 errors on server #1, but am unsure if
> there are better ways of doing it.  I want good performance too.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Patrick C.
> email: pcossette@aei.ca
>
>

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

If they both have the same name, I'm not quite sure how it'd be done, but
otherwise, I'd suggest using a redirect:

http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mo...l#redirectmatch
http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/mod_rewrite.html

Perhaps some articles on load balancing might have some more useful
suggestions.

--
Lars
"Chances are that patents on software ... in fact stifle
innovation. Europe could still alter course"
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Thank you for your answers.  You're right Lars, if both servers had not the
same name, I would use rewrites and it would be easy.  But since I want to
use the same name for both servers, I'll continue to explore mod_alias,
ErrorDocuments and thank you DvDmanDT for pointing me to mod_proxy, I might
use it.  It will be a solution not very clean, but it should work.  I'll
have to see what kind performance I get with this setup.

Thanks again.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]