Are there any load balancers for unraid? Like Kemp, but free, and as a docker, plugin, or command.

 

Load Balancing is quite a broad expression in network, but I think that's what it called. So narrow the explanation:

All request to https://mydomain.com goes to the load balancer. The load balancer checks the full address and directs it to the different internal servers based on the address.

 

nextcloud.mydomain.com goes to the nextcloud server.
ftp.mydomain.com goes to the ftp server.
plex.mydomain.com goes to the plex server.

 

etc. Instead of my setup now where redirects is port-based and done in the router: mydomain.com:532 goes to nextcloud, mydomain.com:21 goes to ftp, mydomain:8324 goes to plex. (Just examples not my real ports, servers, or domains)

 

...you can always use a Router-VM on your unRaid box to do what your dedicated router does today.

Also other options are to separate the traffic into VLANs and have a Vlan enabled switch to filter/QC the ingress- and egress-Data streams.

It's not the traffic load i want to balance (which is how I always used the expression 'load balancing', it's the one external listen port -> several internal server ports. Kemp call it load balancing which I think is a bad name for it, but I don't know any other word for it). So replacing the hardware router with a virtual one, or implement vlans wouldn't solve the 'problem'.

 

Perhaps reverse proxy and load balancing should be my search terms. Found Nginx, might solve the problem. I have to look deeper into that.

NGINX Proxy Manager will do what you are looking for. Need only ports 80 and 443 open. You may need 32400 open for Plex as well (if you dont move to 443).

 

For example:

http://nextcloud.yourdomain.come => your IP (Dynamic of Static) =>NGINX => redirects to internal Unraid -- 192.168.x.x:port

Same for others i.e. ftp, etc.

 

 

Traefik is also an option

 

Yes I would like to see this as well. So that the only port you have to open on your router is 443. I believe Kemp has it free to run on the cloud with AWS or Azure. They also have it free to download and run as a VM. The example I saw was run on VMware and hence was downloaded as an OVF. It’s pretty sweet how this was set up. I am not that familiar with the different VM formats to know if this would or wouldn’t work in the Xen environment. 

On 11/29/2021 at 1:37 AM, jonny_blaze said:

Yes I would like to see this as well. So that the only port you have to open on your router is 443. I believe Kemp has it free to run on the cloud with AWS or Azure. They also have it free to download and run as a VM. The example I saw was run on VMware and hence was downloaded as an OVF. It’s pretty sweet how this was set up. I am not that familiar with the different VM formats to know if this would or wouldn’t work in the Xen environment. 

Reviving an old thread but...

 

This does work as I've just set it up.  The only gotcha is the Xen download is in a .disk format so you need to convert using something like:

 

qemu-img convert -p -O raw /path/to/LoadMaster.disk /path/to/balancer/vdisk1.img

 

preferably in your isos directory.

 

I'm assuming the OP was talking about the NetworkChuck YT video where he goes about setting this up.  I was able to get mine going by following most of those steps and being (im)patient in getting the DNS updated.

On 7/20/2022 at 3:32 PM, Blane said:

Reviving an old thread but...

 

This does work as I've just set it up.  The only gotcha is the Xen download is in a .disk format so you need to convert using something like:

 

qemu-img convert -p -O raw /path/to/LoadMaster.disk /path/to/balancer/vdisk1.img

 

preferably in your isos directory.

 

I'm assuming the OP was talking about the NetworkChuck YT video where he goes about setting this up.  I was able to get mine going by following most of those steps and being (im)patient in getting the DNS updated.

Regarding this, I am new to Unraid/KVM VMs, I was wondering whether you got Kemp running on your side? If so what VM config did you use?

 

EG: The vdisk1.img file created by the command, was that placed as primary drive or as iso image? The machine type? etc.

 

The kemp instructions mention to use IDE drive type but that gives issues with Q35 machine type... 

 

FYI; Yeah, NetworkChuck is an awesome channel with a host of knowledge.

 

Thanks for the command btw!

 

 

EDIT: I FOUND THE SOLUTION!! The for future reader, in teh BIOS option use "SeaBIOS". All other config does not really matter, I have the .img from above mounted as the primary drive and as SATA and that's it. 

Edited August 31, 20222 yr by Aidzer0

On 8/31/2022 at 10:19 AM, Aidzer0 said:

Regarding this, I am new to Unraid/KVM VMs, I was wondering whether you got Kemp running on your side? If so what VM config did you use?

 

EG: The vdisk1.img file created by the command, was that placed as primary drive or as iso image? The machine type? etc.

 

The kemp instructions mention to use IDE drive type but that gives issues with Q35 machine type... 

 

FYI; Yeah, NetworkChuck is an awesome channel with a host of knowledge.

 

Thanks for the command btw!

 

 

EDIT: I FOUND THE SOLUTION!! The for future reader, in teh BIOS option use "SeaBIOS". All other config does not really matter, I have the .img from above mounted as the primary drive and as SATA and that's it. 

 

Sorry, I just saw the notification.

 

I do use SeaBIOS and, in my case, I left the drive type as VirtIO.  If I need to build another one then I'll probably switch to SATA to see if there's any performance differences.  As of today it's been working flawlessly for a couple months. 

 

 

I'm still not clear on how to utilize the *.img file within a virtual server?  Did you create a Linux VM?  Slackware?  All VM options are requiring an *.iso file which i do not have prior to mounting the *.img file.  Thank you.

Edited October 24, 20222 yr by dss

On 10/24/2022 at 5:10 PM, dss said:

I'm still not clear on how to utilize the *.img file within a virtual server?  Did you create a Linux VM?  Slackware?  All VM options are requiring an *.iso file which i do not have prior to mounting the *.img file.  Thank you.

 

 

Linux VM.

 

You don't actually install the OS in a typical way.  IIRC, the *.img file is a working OS, so you put that as your primary vdisk.  There's no *.iso to mount.  

 

I've put in a snippet of my config so you can see what I mean.  HTH

Thanks!