[TriLUG] Multi-webserver open-source CMS?

[Cristóbal Palmer]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 8:09 AM, U. Jason Gloege Jr. <ujgloege at gmail.com> wrote:
> All,
>
> I'm attempting to do my own research via our friend Google, but thought I'd
> ask the authorities, as well, to see if anyone can help shortcut my search:
>
> Is anyone aware of a good (subjective, I know) open source Content
> Management System which will operate against one shared backend DB, and
> publish to 2 webserver nodes.  These nodes already have their own load
> balancer, so that need not be a CMS concern, but I haven't found a lot of
> resources yet for FOSS CMSs which publish to more than one server.

As Allen mentioned, if the web servers are pulling from shared disk
(eg. NFS), then the CMS need not know about the fact that multiple web
servers are serving it. Make sure your PHP is _also_ storing your
session data on shared storage, though, or you might get some
interesting flakiness. In your vhost conf or a .htaccess:

  php_value session.save_path /some/shared/storage/path

Here's a prototypical setup:
{shared NFS, mysql} --> { web server pool } --> LVS load balancing --> Intarwebs

And some real-world examples:

Groklaw (groklaw.net) with highly modified geeklog as the CMS:
{ibiblio NFS, groklaw/ibiblio db node} --> { groklaw/ibiblio apache
web nodes } --> LVS --> Intertubes

Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org) with Mediawiki as the CMS:
{ibiblio NFS, ibiblio mysql node} --> {ibiblio apache vhost nodes} -->
LVS --> IANA dump trucks

Crocodyl (http://www.crocodyl.org/) with Drupal as the CMS:
{ibiblio NFS, ibiblio mysql node} --> {ibiblio apache vhost nodes} -->
LVS --> ISC supercrashway/series of tubes

There are many other examples hosted by ibiblio using Wordpress,
Joomla, and plenty of other software. Some have their gotchas, but
mostly they Just Work. Make sense?

Cheers,
-- 
Cristóbal M. Palmer
"Small acts of humanity amid the chaos of inhumanity provide hope. But
small acts are insufficient."
 -- Paul Rusesabagina