Writing hooks for Perlbal

[Raistlin Majere]

Alright, I have the plugin/callback being called.  Looks like I just  
needed to add "plugins = MyPlugin" (where MyPlugin is the package in  
the Perlbal/Plugin directory).

The callback functionality looks useful for polling things and  
reacting accordingly, I've implemented this, however I am curious how  
to rewrite a request to a different backend server.

Ideally I'd like to be able to be able to:
Accept a request to a virtualhost
Verify that the backend server is up and running
if it's not then hold the request while I either:
	a) bring the backend server up
	b) rewrite the request to a different server
Any ideas how to redirect the request, POST data, etc to a different  
machine?




> Raistlin,
>
> Take a look at registering a callback that perlbal will trigger  
> every N seconds.  AtomStream.pm has it being used.  It's called  
> 'Perlbal::Socket::register_callback'.  You would be able to do  
> whatever check(s) you want, and react accordingly (mark it as down  
> somehow, reconfigure perlbal, etc.)  And it wouldn't be doing it  
> for every request.
>
> Just make sure you don't block.  :)
>
> Elliot
>
> Raistlin Majere wrote:
>> I've installed and configured perlbal and have run into some  
>> difficulties.  I've setup perlbal to be a reverse proxy so that it  
>> correctly proxies virtualhosts to the appropriate servers.  (i.e.  
>> vhost1.example.com, vhost2.example.com correctly reverse proxies  
>> for vhost1.com and vhost2.com respectively) This is working  
>> perfectly, and wasn't too difficult to configure.
>> However now I want to write some code that will:
>> First verify that the backend server is alive
>> Second that the backend server can answer requests on the port I'm  
>> trying to talk to
>> And if it's NOT alive and able to respond to requests that I can  
>> redirect requests to a different server, or execute some code to  
>> bring the downed server up, before retrying.
>> I've tried to use the Perlbal::ClientProxy "start_proxy_request"  
>> hook, however that seems to affect each and every request (i.e.  
>> each html page, graphic, etc.)
>> I need to be able to check to see if the backend server is alive,  
>> and if it's not, tell Perlbal: "Whoa hold your horeses" long  
>> enough for me to bring a server up (I can do this with some  
>> scripts I have), and then redirect the request to the new server.
>> Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.