Creating a proxy server cluster using the wsadmin command

If you run multiple proxy servers on your system, you might want to create a proxy server cluster to make it easier to administer these proxy servers. You can use either the administrative console or the wsadmin command to create a proxy server cluster.

Before you begin

A proxy server cluster includes the machines, and nodes that are going to belong to the proxy server cluster. Before you define your proxy server cluster:

Determine whether a domain name server (DNS), a load balancer, or a proxy server is going to be used to route requests to the proxy server cluster.
Verify that the same version of the product is installed on the nodes that will belong to the proxy server cluster.

Avoid trouble: A proxy server cluster does not have some of the same functionality that an application server cluster has. For example, a proxy cluster does not provide failover, or high availability support. The main reason for creating a proxy cluster is to make it easier to administer multiple proxy servers. For example, if your proxy servers are members of a proxy server cluster, you can specify configuration settings for that proxy server cluster, and the settings are automatically applied to all of the proxy servers in that cluster. Creating a proxy server cluster also enables you to simultaneously start and stop all of the proxy servers in that cluster.

About this task

Complete the following tasks to create a proxy server cluster.

Procedure

Start the deployment manager.
Start the wsadmin utility.
Issue one of the following commands.
The following command creates an empty cluster with no members:
```
$AdminTask createCluster {-clusterConfig {-clusterName <name_of_cluster> -clusterType PROXY_SERVER}}
```
The following command creates a cluster, and add a proxy server to that cluster:
```
$AdminTask createCluster { -clusterConfig {{<name_of_cluster> true PROXY_SERVER}} -convertServer
     {{<node_name> <name_of_proxy_server> "" "" ""}}}
```
The proxy server that you add is used as the template for all subsequent proxy servers that you add to the cluster.
Add a member to the cluster:
If no members exist in the cluster, the first proxy server that is added serves as the template for subsequent members that you add to the cluster.
Issue the following command to add a member to the cluster:
```
$AdminTask createClusterMember {-clusterName <name_of_cluster> -memberConfig  
      {-memberNode <node_name> -memberName <name_of_proxy_server>}}
```
When a proxy server is added to a cluster, proxy-specific configuration settings for it can only be configured using the wsadmin scripting client.
Issue the $AdminConfig save command to save the configuration changes.
Start the proxy server cluster.
Start the proxy server cluster automatically enables request routing.
Configure requests to route to the proxy server.
For DNS-based routing, associate the logical name of the site with the IP addresses of the proxy server cluster members in DNS.

For Load balancer routing, configure the IP addresses of the cluster members as the target of the virtual cluster.

For Edge proxy or IBM HTTP Server with WebSphere® Application Server plug-in-based routing, generate the plug-in configuration file for the proxy server cluster, and configure the Edge proxy or the WebSphere Application Server plug-in with this information.

Results

The proxy server cluster is created with the members and is enabled for routing traffic.

What to do next

Monitor the traffic.