Can Apache BalancerMember be configured to use unix domain sockets?

Question

I am using the Apache Proxy balancer directive to hook up a set of thin servers (for Rails).

Like so:

  <Proxy balancer://thinservers>
    BalancerMember http://127.0.0.1:5000 route=thin0
    BalancerMember http://127.0.0.1:5001 route=thin1
    BalancerMember http://127.0.0.1:5002 route=thin2
  </Proxy>

However, thin can also be configured to use unix domain sockets.

So I want to be able to do something like:

  <Proxy balancer://thinservers>
    BalancerMember unix://tmp/thin.0.sock route=thin0
    BalancerMember unix://tmp/thin.1.sock route=thin1
    BalancerMember unix://tmp/thin.2.sock route=thin2
  </Proxy>

But Apache is not taking it. Apparently nginx can do it, but I really want to use Apache.

Is there a way?

Shoop

OK, it seems that no-one here knows the answer to this. Likely the answer is no. Can anyone suggest an appropriate Apache board where I can ask this question before wrapping it up? – Shoop

Maybe you should try asking on serverfault. – Huertas

do you get answer on this question? – Disgruntle

Answer 1

Short answer, no.

From http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_proxy_balancer.html

It provides load balancing support for HTTP, FTP and AJP13 protocols

So those are the only protocols supported.

Spalato

The protocol is independent of the type of socket used. Nginx proxies HTTP over Unix sockets. – Randi

Correct. Somewhere I found a sugguestion that the socket=%2Ftmp%2Fthin.0.sock syntax might work, however I was untable make it work nor was I able to find anything related to it in the source code. Your best bet would be to reconfigure thin to listen on TCP on localhost and use it that way. – Galicia