Geoserver clustering

Question

I am running into problems configuring the jms clustering of Geoserver.

Here is the background:

I have 4 virtualboxes, each running a Geoserver 2.7.1 with the jms-cluster extension. I would like to keep the embedded broker in a matter of simpler installation. Also I would like to preserve this kind of peer to peer network because it supports easily the add or removal of node and because clients, do not have to know the broker network config.

However, my network admin announced me multicast will not be allowed in production environment. So as I know a priori the ip addresses of all the geoserver instances, I would like to change the multicast to a set of static ip.

But, for now, I did not succeed... jms brokers do not see each others.

I have even tried with a specific broker.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans
    xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:amq="http://activemq.apache.org/schema/core"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.0.xsd
                        http://activemq.apache.org/schema/core http://activemq.apache.org/schema/core/activemq-core.xsd">
  <bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer"/>
  <broker useJmx="true" xmlns="http://activemq.apache.org/schema/core">

    <amq:persistenceAdapter>
      <kahaDB directory="${activemq.base}/kahadb" lockKeepAlivePeriod="0" />
    </amq:persistenceAdapter>

    <networkConnectors xmlns="http://activemq.apache.org/schema/core">
      <networkConnector uri="static:(tcp://host1:61616,tcp://host2:61616,tcp://host3:61616,tcp://localhost:61616)" />
    </networkConnectors>

    <transportConnectors>
      <transportConnector name="openwire" uri="${activemq.transportConnectors.server.uri}"
                <!-- I HAVE TRIED WITH AND WITHOUT THIS NEXT LINE -->
                     discoveryUri="static:(tcp://host1:61616,tcp://host2:61616,tcp://host3:61616,tcp://localhost:61616)"
/>
    </transportConnectors>
  </broker>
</beans>

Is there a way to configure the activemq discovery with a fixed set of ip?

I have already checked the activemq documentation (http://activemq.apache.org/networks-of-brokers.html) but I can have it working so perhaps it is linked to the fact the broker is embedded.

Answer 1

I found the solution for this problem using an external broker per geoserver node: the only step I missed was to set the var 'connection' of the cluster.properties to TRUE. This field can be found in the web UI in the cluster configuration panel, but it is named "Slave connection". A bit confusing!

Answer 2

A quick suggestion is to disable the embedded broker, use an external one (eventually clustered). This is similar to having the p2p network in terms of functionalities and it is not too difficult to manage.

That said, what I believe your configuration is a bit messed up. That said discovery works only with multicast. What you can do if you know in advanced the IP addresses of the GS instances is to create a static network between the embedded broker and still have each geoserver instance talk to its local broker.

You can customize the embedded-broker.properties as follows:

activemq.transportConnectors.server.uri=tcp://tcp://localhost:61616?maximumConnections=1000&wireFormat.maxFrameSize=104857600&jms.useAsyncSend=true&transport.daemon=true

activemq.transportConnectors.server.discoveryURI=static:(tcp://host1:61616,tcp://host2:61616,tcp://host3:61616)

This tells the broker to listen on port 61616 but also to forward messages to all the other brokers.

The configuration for each embedded broker should be similar to create a correct network where each produced (i.e. GeoServer instance) will have its messages sento to all the other instances.

Let me know if this works, I did not have time to test it.