Red Hat Enterprise Linux LVS clustering uses a Linux machine called the active router to send requests from the Internet to a pool of servers. To accomplish this, LVS clusters consist of two basic machine classifications — the LVS routers (one active and one backup) and a pool of real servers which provide the critical services.
The active router serves two roles in the cluster:
To balance the load on the real servers.
To check the integrity of the services on each of the real servers.
The backup router's job is to monitor the active router and assume its role in the event of failure.
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