Provided by: ipvsadm_1.31-1_amd64 
NAME
ipvsadm - Linux Virtual Server administration
SYNOPSIS
ipvsadm -A|E virtual-service [-s scheduler]
[-p [timeout]] [-M netmask] [-b sched-flags]
ipvsadm -D virtual-service
ipvsadm -C
ipvsadm -R
ipvsadm -S [-n]
ipvsadm -a|e virtual-service -r server-address
[-g|i|m] [-w weight] [-x upper] [-y lower]
ipvsadm -d virtual-service -r server-address
ipvsadm -L|l [virtual-service] [options]
ipvsadm -Z [virtual-service]
ipvsadm --set tcp tcpfin udp
ipvsadm --start-daemon state [daemon-options]
[--syncid syncid]
ipvsadm --stop-daemon state
ipvsadm -h
DESCRIPTION
Ipvsadm(8) is used to set up, maintain or inspect the virtual server table in the Linux
kernel. The Linux Virtual Server can be used to build scalable network services based on a
cluster of two or more nodes. The active node of the cluster redirects service requests to
a collection of server hosts that will actually perform the services. Supported features
include three protocols (TCP, UDP and SCTP), three packet-forwarding methods (NAT,
tunneling, and direct routing), and eight load balancing algorithms (round robin, weighted
round robin, least-connection, weighted least-connection, locality-based least-connection,
locality-based least-connection with replication, destination-hashing, and source-
hashing).
The command has two basic formats for execution:
ipvsadm COMMAND virtual-service
[scheduling-method] [persistence options]
ipvsadm command virtual-service
server-address [packet-forwarding-method]
[weight options]
The first format manipulates a virtual service and the algorithm for assigning service
requests to real servers. Optionally, a persistent timeout and network mask for the
granularity of a persistent service and a persistence engine may be specified. The second
format manipulates a real server that is associated with an existing virtual service.
When specifying a real server, the packet-forwarding method and the weight of the real
server, relative to other real servers for the virtual service, may be specified,
otherwise defaults will be used.
COMMANDS
ipvsadm(8) recognises the commands described below. Upper-case commands maintain virtual
services. Lower-case commands maintain real servers that are associated with a virtual
service.
-A, --add-service
Add a virtual service. A service address is uniquely defined by a triplet: IP
address, port number, and protocol. Alternatively, a virtual service may be defined
by a firewall-mark.
-E, --edit-service
Edit a virtual service.
-D, --delete-service
Delete a virtual service, along with any associated real servers.
-C, --clear
Clear the virtual server table.
-R, --restore
Restore Linux Virtual Server rules from stdin. Each line read from stdin will be
treated as the command line options to a separate invocation of ipvsadm. Lines read
from stdin can optionally begin with "ipvsadm". This option is useful to avoid
executing a large number or ipvsadm commands when constructing an extensive
routing table.
-S, --save
Dump the Linux Virtual Server rules to stdout in a format that can be read by
-R|--restore.
-a, --add-server
Add a real server to a virtual service.
-e, --edit-server
Edit a real server in a virtual service.
-d, --delete-server
Remove a real server from a virtual service.
-L, -l, --list
List the virtual server table if no argument is specified. If a service-address is
selected, list this service only. If the -c option is selected, then display the
connection table. The exact output is affected by the other arguments given.
-Z, --zero
Zero the packet, byte and rate counters in a service or all services.
--set tcp tcpfin udp
Change the timeout values used for IPVS connections. This command always takes 3
parameters, representing the timeout values (in seconds) for TCP sessions, TCP
sessions after receiving a FIN packet, and UDP packets, respectively. A timeout
value 0 means that the current timeout value of the corresponding entry is
preserved.
--start-daemon state
Start the connection synchronization daemon. The state is to indicate that the
daemon is started as master or backup. The connection synchronization daemon is
implemented inside the Linux kernel. The master daemon running at the primary load
balancer multicasts changes of connections periodically, and the backup daemon
running at the backup load balancers receives multicast message and creates
corresponding connections. Then, in case the primary load balancer fails, a backup
load balancer will takeover, and it has state of almost all connections, so that
almost all established connections can continue to access the service.
The sync daemon supports IPv4 and IPv6 connections.
--stop-daemon
Stop the connection synchronization daemon.
-h, --help
Display a description of the command syntax.
virtual-service
Specifies the virtual service based on protocol/addr/port or firewall mark.
-t, --tcp-service service-address
Use TCP service. The service-address is of the form host[:port]. Host may be one
of a plain IP address or a hostname. Port may be either a plain port number or the
service name of port. The Port may be omitted, in which case zero will be used. A
Port of zero is only valid if the service is persistent as the -p|--persistent
option, in which case it is a wild-card port, that is connections will be accepted
to any port.
-u, --udp-service service-address
Use UDP service. See the -t|--tcp-service for the description of the service-
address.
--sctp-service service-address
Use SCTP service. See the -t|--tcp-service for the description of the service-
address.
-f, --fwmark-service integer
Use a firewall-mark, an integer value greater than zero, to denote a virtual
service instead of an address, port and protocol (UDP, TCP or SCTP). The marking of
packets with a firewall-mark is configured using the -m|--mark option to
iptables(8), the meta mark set value option to nft(8) or via an eBPF program. It
can be used to build a virtual service associated with the same real servers,
covering multiple IP address, port and protocol triplets. If IPv6 addresses are
used, the -6 option must be used.
Using firewall-mark virtual services provides a convenient method of grouping
together different IP addresses, ports and protocols into a single virtual service.
This is useful for both simplifying configuration if a large number of virtual
services are required and grouping persistence across what would otherwise be
multiple virtual services.
PARAMETERS
The commands above accept or require zero or more of the following parameters.
-s, --scheduler scheduling-method
scheduling-method Algorithm for allocating TCP connections and UDP datagrams to
real servers. Scheduling algorithms are implemented as kernel modules. Ten are
shipped with the Linux Virtual Server:
rr - Round Robin: distributes jobs equally amongst the available real servers.
wrr - Weighted Round Robin: assigns jobs to real servers proportionally to there
real servers' weight. Servers with higher weights receive new jobs first and get
more jobs than servers with lower weights. Servers with equal weights get an equal
distribution of new jobs.
lc - Least-Connection: assigns more jobs to real servers with fewer active jobs.
wlc - Weighted Least-Connection: assigns more jobs to servers with fewer jobs and
relative to the real servers' weight (Ci/Wi). This is the default.
lblc - Locality-Based Least-Connection: assigns jobs destined for the same IP
address to the same server if the server is not overloaded and available; otherwise
assign jobs to servers with fewer jobs, and keep it for future assignment.
lblcr - Locality-Based Least-Connection with Replication: assigns jobs destined for
the same IP address to the least-connection node in the server set for the IP
address. If all the node in the server set are over loaded, it picks up a node with
fewer jobs in the cluster and adds it in the sever set for the target. If the
server set has not been modified for the specified time, the most loaded node is
removed from the server set, in order to avoid high degree of replication.
dh - Destination Hashing: assigns jobs to servers through looking up a statically
assigned hash table by their destination IP addresses.
sh - Source Hashing: assigns jobs to servers through looking up a statically
assigned hash table by their source IP addresses. This scheduler has two flags:
sh-fallback, which enables fallback to a different server if the selected server
was unavailable, and sh-port, which adds the source port number to the hash
computation.
sed - Shortest Expected Delay: assigns an incoming job to the server with the
shortest expected delay. The expected delay that the job will experience is (Ci +
1) / Ui if sent to the ith server, in which Ci is the number of jobs on the the
ith server and Ui is the fixed service rate (weight) of the ith server.
nq - Never Queue: assigns an incoming job to an idle server if there is, instead of
waiting for a fast one; if all the servers are busy, it adopts the Shortest
Expected Delay policy to assign the job.
fo - Weighted Failover: assigns an incoming job to the server with the highest
weight that is currently available.
ovf - Weighted Overflow: assigns an incoming job to the server with the highest
weight that is currently available and overflows to the next when active
connections exceed the node's weight. Note that this scheduler might not be
suitable for UDP because it only uses active connections.
mh - Maglev Hashing: assigns incoming jobs based on Google's Maglev hashing
algorithm, providing an almost equal share of jobs to each real server and provides
minimal disruption. When the set of real servers changes, a connection will likely
be sent to the same real server as it was before. This scheduler has two flags:
mh-fallback, which enables fallback to a different server if the selected server
was unavailable, and mh-port, which adds the source port number to the hash
computation.
-p, --persistent [timeout]
Specify that a virtual service is persistent. If this option is specified, multiple
requests from a client are redirected to the same real server selected for the
first request. Optionally, the timeout of persistent sessions may be specified
given in seconds, otherwise the default of 300 seconds will be used. This option
may be used in conjunction with protocols such as SSL or FTP where it is important
that clients consistently connect with the same real server.
Note: If a virtual service is to handle FTP connections then persistence must be
set for the virtual service if Direct Routing or Tunnelling is used as the
forwarding mechanism. If Masquerading is used in conjunction with an FTP service
than persistence is not necessary, but the ip_vs_ftp kernel module must be used.
This module may be manually inserted into the kernel using insmod(8).
-M, --netmask netmask
Specify the granularity with which clients are grouped for persistent virtual
services. The source address of the request is masked with this netmask to direct
all clients from a network to the same real server. The default is 255.255.255.255,
that is, the persistence granularity is per client host. Less specific netmasks may
be used to resolve problems with non-persistent cache clusters on the client side.
IPv6 netmasks should be specified as a prefix length between 1 and 128. The
default prefix length is 128.
--pe persistence-engine
Specify an alternative persistence engine to be used. Currently the only
alternative persistence engine available is sip.
-b, --sched-flags sched-flags
Set scheduler flags for this virtual server. sched-flags is a comma-separated list
of flags. See the scheduler descriptions for valid scheduler flags.
-r, --real-server server-address
Real server that an associated request for service may be assigned to. The server-
address is the host address of a real server, and may plus port. Host can be either
a plain IP address or a hostname. Port can be either a plain port number or the
service name of port. In the case of the masquerading method, the host address is
usually an RFC 1918 private IP address, and the port can be different from that of
the associated service. With the tunneling and direct routing methods, port must be
equal to that of the service address. For normal services, the port specified in
the service address will be used if port is not specified. For fwmark services,
port may be omitted, in which case the destination port on the real server will be
the destination port of the request sent to the virtual service.
[packet-forwarding-method]
-g, --gatewaying Use gatewaying (direct routing). This is the default.
-i, --ipip Use ipip encapsulation (tunneling).
--tun-type tun-type
tun-type is one of ipip|gue|gre. The default value of tun-type is
ipip.
--tun-port tun-port
tun-port is an integer specifying the destination port. Only valid
for tun-type gue.
--tun-nocsum
Specify that tunnel checksums are disabled. This is the default.
Only valid for tun-type gue and gre.
--tun-csum
Specify that tunnel checksums are enabled. Only valid for tun-type
gue and gre.
--tun-remcsum
Specify that Remote Checksum Offload is enabled. Only valid for
tun-type gue.
-m, --masquerading Use masquerading (network access translation, or NAT).
Note: Regardless of the packet-forwarding mechanism specified, real servers for
addresses for which there are interfaces on the local node will be use the local
forwarding method, then packets for the servers will be passed to upper layer on
the local node. This cannot be specified by ipvsadm, rather it set by the kernel as
real servers are added or modified.
-w, --weight weight
Weight is an integer specifying the capacity of a server relative to the others in
the pool. The valid values of weight are 0 through to 2147483647. The default is 1.
Quiescent servers are specified with a weight of zero. A quiescent server will
receive no new jobs but still serve the existing jobs, for all scheduling
algorithms distributed with the Linux Virtual Server. Setting a quiescent server
may be useful if the server is overloaded or needs to be taken out of service for
maintenance.
-x, --u-threshold uthreshold
uthreshold is an integer specifying the upper connection threshold of a server. The
valid values of uthreshold are 0 through to 65535. The default is 0, which means
the upper connection threshold is not set. If uthreshold is set with other values,
no new connections will be sent to the server when the number of its connections
exceeds its upper connection threshold.
-y, --l-threshold lthreshold
lthreshold is an integer specifying the lower connection threshold of a server. The
valid values of lthreshold are 0 through to 65535. The default is 0, which means
the lower connection threshold is not set. If lthreshold is set with other values,
the server will receive new connections when the number of its connections drops
below its lower connection threshold. If lthreshold is not set but uthreshold is
set, the server will receive new connections when the number of its connections
drops below three forth of its upper connection threshold.
-c, --connection
Connection output. The list command with this option will list current IPVS
connections.
--timeout
Timeout output. The list command with this option will display the timeout values
(in seconds) for TCP sessions, TCP sessions after receiving a FIN packet, and UDP
packets.
--daemon
Daemon information output. The list command with this option will display the
daemon status and its multicast interface.
--stats
Output of statistics information. The list command with this option will display
the statistics information of services and their servers.
--rate Output of rate information. The list command with this option will display the rate
information (such as connections/second, bytes/second and packets/second) of
services and their servers.
--thresholds
Output of thresholds information. The list command with this option will display
the upper/lower connection threshold information of each server in service listing.
--persistent-conn
Output of persistent connection information. The list command with this option will
display the persistent connection counter information of each server in service
listing. The persistent connection is used to forward the actual connections from
the same client/network to the same server.
The list command with the -c, --connection option and this option will include
persistence engine data, if any is present, when listing connections.
--tun-info
Output of tunneling information. The list command with this option will display the
tunneling information of services and their servers.
--sort Sort the list of virtual services and real servers. The virtual service entries are
sorted in ascending order by <protocol, address, port>. The real server entries are
sorted in ascending order by <address, port>. (default)
--nosort
Do not sort the list of virtual services and real servers.
-n, --numeric
Numeric output. IP addresses and port numbers will be printed in numeric format
rather than as as host names and services respectively, which is the default.
--exact
Expand numbers. Display the exact value of the packet and byte counters, instead
of only the rounded number in K's (multiples of 1000) M's (multiples of 1000K) or
G's (multiples of 1000M). This option is only relevant for the -L command.
-6, --ipv6
Use with -f to signify fwmark rule uses IPv6 addresses.
-o, --ops
One-packet scheduling. Used in conjunction with a UDP virtual service or a fwmark
virtual service that handles only UDP packets. All connections are created such
that they only schedule one packet.
PARAMETERS FOR SYNCHRONIZATION DAEMON
The --start-daemon requires zero or more of the following parameters.
--syncid syncid
Specify the syncid that the sync master daemon fills in the SyncID header while
sending multicast messages, or the sync backup daemon uses to filter out multicast
messages not matched with the SyncID value. The valid values of syncid are 0
through to 255. The default is 0, which means no filtering at all.
--sync-maxlen length
Specify the desired length of sync messages (UDP payload size). It is expected
that backup server will use value not less than the used value in master server.
The valid values of length are in the 1 .. (65535 - 20 - 8) range but the kernel
ensures a space for at least one sync message. If value is lower than MTU the sync
messages will be fragmented by IP layer. The default value is derived from the MTU
value when daemon is started but master daemon will not default to value above 1500
for compatibility reasons.
--mcast-interface interface
Specify the multicast interface that the sync master daemon sends outgoing
multicasts through, or the sync backup daemon listens to for multicasts.
--mcast-group address
Specify IPv4 or IPv6 multicast address for the sync messages. The default value is
224.0.0.81.
--mcast-port port
Specify the UDP port for sync messages. The default value is 8848.
--mcast-ttl ttl
Specify the TTL value for sync messages (1 .. 255). The default value is 1.
EXAMPLE 1 - Simple Virtual Service
The following commands configure a Linux Director to distribute incoming requests
addressed to port 80 on 207.175.44.110 equally to port 80 on five real servers. The
forwarding method used in this example is NAT, with each of the real servers being
masqueraded by the Linux Director.
ipvsadm -A -t 207.175.44.110:80 -s rr
ipvsadm -a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.1:80 -m
ipvsadm -a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.2:80 -m
ipvsadm -a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.3:80 -m
ipvsadm -a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.4:80 -m
ipvsadm -a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.5:80 -m
Alternatively, this could be achieved in a single ipvsadm command.
echo "
-A -t 207.175.44.110:80 -s rr
-a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.1:80 -m
-a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.2:80 -m
-a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.3:80 -m
-a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.4:80 -m
-a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.5:80 -m
" | ipvsadm -R
As masquerading is used as the forwarding mechanism in this example, the default route of
the real servers must be set to the linux director, which will need to be configured to
forward and masquerade packets. This can be achieved using the following commands:
echo "1" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
EXAMPLE 2 - Firewall-Mark Virtual Service
The following commands configure a Linux Director to distribute incoming requests
addressed to any port on 207.175.44.110 or 207.175.44.111 equally to the corresponding
port on five real servers. As per the previous example, the forwarding method used in this
example is NAT, with each of the real servers being masqueraded by the Linux Director.
ipvsadm -A -f 1 -s rr
ipvsadm -a -f 1 -r 192.168.10.1:0 -m
ipvsadm -a -f 1 -r 192.168.10.2:0 -m
ipvsadm -a -f 1 -r 192.168.10.3:0 -m
ipvsadm -a -f 1 -r 192.168.10.4:0 -m
ipvsadm -a -f 1 -r 192.168.10.5:0 -m
As masquerading is used as the forwarding mechanism in this example, the default route of
the real servers must be set to the linux director, which will need to be configured to
forward and masquerade packets. The real server should also be configured to mark incoming
packets addressed to any port on 207.175.44.110 and 207.175.44.111 with firewall-mark 1.
If FTP traffic is to be handled by this virtual service, then the ip_vs_ftp kernel module
needs to be inserted into the kernel. These operations can be achieved using the
following commands:
echo "1" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
modprobe ip_tables
iptables -A PREROUTING -t mangle -d 207.175.44.110/31 -j MARK --set-mark 1
modprobe ip_vs_ftp
EXAMPLE 3 - Virtual Service with GUE Tunneling
The following commands configure a Linux Director to distribute incoming requests
addressed to port 80 on 207.175.44.110 equally to port 80 on five real servers. The
forwarding method used in this example is tunneling with gue encapsulation.
ipvsadm -A -t 207.175.44.110:80 -s rr
ipvsadm -a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.1:80 -i --tun-type gue --tun-port 6080 --tun-nocsum
ipvsadm -a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.2:80 -i --tun-type gue --tun-port 6080 --tun-csum
ipvsadm -a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.3:80 -i --tun-type gue --tun-port 6080 --tun-remcsum
ipvsadm -a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.4:80 -i --tun-type gue --tun-port 6078
ipvsadm -a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.5:80 -i --tun-type gue --tun-port 6079
Alternatively, this could be achieved in a single ipvsadm command.
echo "
-A -t 207.175.44.110:80 -s rr
-a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.1:80 -i --tun-type gue --tun-port 6080 --tun-nocsum
-a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.2:80 -i --tun-type gue --tun-port 6080 --tun-csum
-a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.3:80 -i --tun-type gue --tun-port 6080 --tun-remcsum
-a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.4:80 -i --tun-type gue --tun-port 6078
-a -t 207.175.44.110:80 -r 192.168.10.5:80 -i --tun-type gue --tun-port 6079
" | ipvsadm -R
EXAMPLE 4 - Virtual Service with GRE Tunneling
The following commands configure a Linux Director to use GRE encapsulation.
ipvsadm -A -t 10.0.0.1:80 -s rr
ipvsadm -a -t 10.0.0.1:80 -r 192.168.11.1:80 -i --tun-type gre --tun-csum
IPv6
IPv6 addresses should be surrounded by square brackets ([ and ]).
ipvsadm -A -t [2001:db8::80]:80 -s rr
ipvsadm -a -t [2001:db8::80]:80 -r [2001:db8::a0a0]:80 -m
fwmark IPv6 services require the -6 option.
NOTES
The Linux Virtual Server implements three defense strategies against some types of denial
of service (DoS) attacks. The Linux Director creates an entry for each connection in order
to keep its state, and each entry occupies 128 bytes effective memory. LVS's vulnerability
to a DoS attack lies in the potential to increase the number entries as much as possible
until the linux director runs out of memory. The three defense strategies against the
attack are: Randomly drop some entries in the table. Drop 1/rate packets before forwarding
them. And use secure tcp state transition table and short timeouts. The strategies are
controlled by sysctl variables and corresponding entries in the /proc filesystem:
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/drop_entry /proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/drop_packet
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/secure_tcp
Valid values for each variable are 0 through to 3. The default value is 0, which disables
the respective defense strategy. 1 and 2 are automatic modes - when there is no enough
available memory, the respective strategy will be enabled and the variable is
automatically set to 2, otherwise the strategy is disabled and the variable is set to 1. A
value of 3 denotes that the respective strategy is always enabled. The available memory
threshold and secure TCP timeouts can be tuned using the sysctl variables and
corresponding entries in the /proc filesystem:
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/amemthresh /proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/timeout_*
FILES
/proc/net/ip_vs
/proc/net/ip_vs_app
/proc/net/ip_vs_conn
/proc/net/ip_vs_stats
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/am_droprate
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/amemthresh
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/drop_entry
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/drop_packet
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/secure_tcp
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/timeout_close
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/timeout_closewait
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/timeout_established
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/timeout_finwait
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/timeout_icmp
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/timeout_lastack
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/timeout_listen
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/timeout_synack
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/timeout_synrecv
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/timeout_synsent
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/timeout_timewait
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/vs/timeout_udp
SEE ALSO
The LVS web site (http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org/) for more documentation about LVS.
ipvsadm-save(8), ipvsadm-restore(8), iptables(8),
insmod(8), modprobe(8)
AUTHORS
ipvsadm - Wensong Zhang <wensong@linuxvirtualserver.org>
Peter Kese <peter.kese@ijs.si>
man page - Mike Wangsmo <wanger@redhat.com>
Wensong Zhang <wensong@linuxvirtualserver.org>
Horms <horms@verge.net.au>