How to Install / Setup Snapt Load Balancer on CentOS 7

Load balancers are always been important factors used to increase capacity and reliability of applications. In this post we will setup and configure Snapt’s Load Balancer which is a complete software load balancing solution with a wide variety of features and great performance. Load balancers are targeted to decrease response time and maximize reliable performance and uptime. Snapt provide software application delivery controllers and load balancers that provide optimization, acceleration, reliability and more to websites.

Download Bundled Snapt Framework

Snapt provides multiple options to setup its installation. The most proffered one is to get its ISO image or VM, but on the other hand it also provides with its bundled frame work that can be used for any operating system.

Snapt Framework Installation

The Snapt Framework is all that we need to get it running – it will automatically install or include any modules that are needed. Extract the downloaded snapt framework bundle file into / by running below command.

[root@centos-7 /]# tar -C / -xvf SnaptBundle-10104622.tar.gz

One the package has been extracted run the below command to start snapt stand web server.

[root@centos-7 /]# /usr/local/snapt/start.sh

o Cleanup
o LD setup.
o Copy files.
o PHP link created.
o SQLite3 found.
o www group added.
o Adding www user.
o Adding cron task.
o Setting permissions.
o Setting wrapper suid.
o Starting webserver.

Snapt started on port 8080.

Snapt Web Console

After installation access the Snapt web admin console using your servers IP or as localhost with port 8080.

http://localhost:8080
http://172.25.10.170:8080

Enter the login credentials of Snapt account.

After successful login We will be directed to the Snapt Dashboard where we will be able to perform its configurations and other settings.

Installation of Snaptin and Plugins

After the installation of Snapt now we will install Snaptin and Plugins. Let's do the following.

• Go to setup and then Snaptin& Plugins
• Choose and install Snapt Cache, Snapt Balancer, Snapt Accelerator from snaptins.
• Go to Misc tab and select and install Snapt Backup, Snapt Redundancy.
• Go to Balancer tab and choose and install Snapt Balancer SSL Termination and Snapt Balancer HTTP Analyzer.

Manage Installed Plugins

Here we can see all the installed plugins under snaptin that we can manage from this location either we want to enable/disable or delete any plugin.

Configurations of Balancer

Follow the steps to configure Balancer. This configuration will cover HTTP and HTTPS applications.

For Backend HTTP Configuration

1. Go to Balancer>Backend Management. In Backends page click on Add backend.
2. Type the Backend name like outboundHTTPapp2 and click on step2.
3. In Adding Backend menu select Round Robin in balance method option. Select balance mode to HTTPlayer7. Leave other options as default and click on save.
4. Backend will be visible under Active Backends menu. Click on Servers in outboundHTTPapp2 which we created earlier.
5. Click on Add Servers in servers in outboundHTTPapp2 menu.
6. Type in the server name “name of the application”, ip address xx.xx.xx.xx of the web server and port 80 and click on step2.
7. Type in the server name “name of the application”, ip address xx.xx.xx.xx of the web server and port 80 and click on step2
8. Leave standard options, Health check and Performance to default and click on save.
9. Follow the steps 6 and 7 to enter another application server.

For Frontend HTTP configuration

1. Go to Balancer >Frontend Managemnt . Click on Add Frontend.
2. Type the inboundHTTPapp2 in server name filed.
3. In Ip address field click on Manual input and type the local host ip address 127.0.0.1 and port 81 and click on step2.
   Remember:- when creating another inboundHTTp application port will be 82, 83 and so on.
4. In standard options select Balance mode as HTTP layer7. Leave http options and SSL options as default and click on save.
5. Reload Balancer and check the saved configurations.

Configuration of Snapt (Balancer)

Perform following steps to configure Snapt Balancer

1. Go to setup and
2. Go to Balancer> Configuration > Default Settings. Leave the Snapt recommended settings.
3. Go to Balancer > Configuration > Performance tuning. Leave the performance tweaks to system default settings and under DOS prevention/Migration, select SYN Cookie Protection Enabled.
4. In DOS specific attacks select Slowloris as Protected.
5. Go to Balancer > Snapt Settings. Enable all options under general menu and save.
6. Go to Balancer > Logging options select enable Logging as enabled. Also enable the Notification options to Level 3 All Notices as well. Change these parameters if required.

Conclusion

We had installed and configured snapt bundled framework on our linux centos 7 host by enabling its different plugins to setup load balacing of our web servers. So its concluded that Snapt is very easy to set up and has tons of features that can be configure in minutes and comes with its powerful web accelerator and web application firewall.

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