Cannot load balance to multiple Web servers with Linux Access Gateway after upgrading from iChain

  • 7002420
  • 22-Jan-2009
  • 26-Apr-2012

Environment

Novell Access Manager 3 Linux Access Gateway
Novell Access Manager 3 Access Administration
Novell Access Manager 3 Support Pack 4 applied
Novell Access Manager 3.1 also has issue
Upgrade from iChain 2.3

Situation

Multiple back end web servers accelerated by iChain 2.3. iChain has a config option for session affinity 
in the UI called 'load balance at session level'. It is documented at
https://www.novell.com/documentation/ichain23/ichain23/index.html?page=/documentation/ichain23/ichain23/data/hvlyzq9o.html.

Load Balance at Session Level Only: Selecting this option causes the proxy
server to use the same Web server for all fills during a session. This prevents
eBusiness users from needing to log in multiple times. This setting affects all
Web server accelerators configured on the proxy server.

By default, this setting is disabled. Enabling this parameter causes the proxy
to set a cookie (ZNPCQ001-*) on the browser so that all requests for that clients
session are sent to the same back end Web server, when multiple Web servers are defined.


While upgrading to Novell Access Manager 3.1, no corresponding option exists to enable session affinity
on the LAG - an equivalent to the iChain 'load balance at session level'. The setup has single LAG proxy
server accelerating multiple back end web servers.

Resolution

With the Linux Access Gateway (LAG), there is no corresponding option. In the LAG setup, when you
define multiple Web servers in a proxy service, we automatically turn on session affinity even if
the admin does not require it. Confirmation on whether the setting is active can be done using ieHTTPHeaders
of the Firefox LiveHTTPHeader plugins to check whether the persistence cookie (ZNPCQ003-*) is set.

Enhancement request in to create an option to enable/disable this persistence option.