We have 2 ignition gateways configured as redundant pair. And the configuration does work well. We have tested it using Force Failure on primary, Primary machine restart / shutdown. But for power failure / unplug it does not work. And we are using perspective.
Questions - to productionize:
Will the DNS configuration be for the Primary gateway? While Ignition manages the failover?
If DNS config is for primary only, how will it work in case of power failure or such situations? Do we need a load balancer? Or there is a recommended way IA has to suggest? OR Does the ignition gateway update the DNS records on failover?
The IP addresses of both the master and the backup gateway have to be resolvable using DNS. Perspective sessions use both redundant gateway addresses, so that they can redirect to the backup gateway if the master gateway can no longer be reached. And for something like power failure of the master gateway, Perspective sessions should definitely be redirected to the backup gateway.
Thanks for your response. One question in that case, DNS record needs to round robin between both IP’s? or does it need to have some failover configured in the DNS record (health check etc.)?
I think you've misunderstood what Ignition redundancy expects. You don't direct traffic in a load balancer. You give the two gateways unique DNS names. You point Perspective browser clients at the master, and provide URLs that point at the backup for the case when a browser needs to connect while the master is down. Workstation would be configured with both DNS names to "just work". (Vision, too, if ever necessary.)
Do not "load balance" for Ignition redundancy. If you are using a proxy, proxy the two DNS names separately to the two real gateways.
while, the ignition redundant pair config will have the secondary / backup also configured, plus the DNS server will have both the primary and backup entries. In case when primary fails, backup will takeover, which will be handled by the gateway. It will not be necessary for my client to change the URL’s in the browser?
Perspective Workstation is a custom-wrapped browser that can be configured to understand both main and backup URLs.
A running Perspective session in a normal browser will auto-connect to the backup URL and will switch over to the backup by itself. And switch back when the master recovers.
You cannot start a normal browser session pointing at the master URL if the master is inactive. You must provide your users with instructions/shortcuts to the backup URL, too. Just for the new session situation.
For the auto-switchover to work, each client must have a working network path to both gateways, either direct or through proxies.