IPVS (IP Virtual Server) implements transport-layer
load balancing, usually called
Layer 4
In computer networking, the transport layer is a conceptual division of methods in the layered architecture of protocols in the network stack in the Internet protocol suite and the OSI model. The protocols of this layer provide end-to-end c ...
LAN switching
A network switch (also called switching hub, bridging hub, Ethernet switch, and, by the IEEE, MAC bridge) is networking hardware that connects devices on a computer network by using packet switching to receive and forward data to the destinati ...
, as part of the
Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...
. It's configured via the user-space utility tool.
IPVS is incorporated into the
Linux Virtual Server
Linux Virtual Server (LVS) is load balancing software for Linux kernel–based operating systems.
LVS is a free and open-source project started by Wensong Zhang in May 1998, subject to the requirements of the GNU General Public License (GPL ...
(LVS), where it runs on a host and acts as a load balancer in front of a cluster of real servers. IPVS can direct requests for TCP- and UDP-based services to the real servers, and make services of the real servers appear as virtual services on a single
IP address
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...
. IPVS is built on top of
Netfilter.
IPVS is merged into versions 2.4.x and newer of the Linux kernel mainline.
See also
*
Netfilter and
nftables
nftables is a subsystem of the Linux kernel providing filtering and classification of network packets/datagrams/frames. It has been available since Linux kernel 3.13 released on 19 January 2014.
nftables replaces the legacy iptables component of ...
*
Network scheduler
A network scheduler, also called packet scheduler, queueing discipline (qdisc) or queueing algorithm, is an arbiter on a node in a packet switching communication network. It manages the sequence of network packets in the transmit and receive ...
References
External links
Source archiveVirtual Server Configuration Wiki
{{Linux kernel
Internet Protocol based network software
Parallel computing
High-availability cluster computing
Servers (computing)
Routing