samba - May 2009 - Is building a load balance setup like this workable?

Okay, before anything else, all I'm using samba for is a "Windows 
looking" frontend to cups.  Eg, so the users don't know I'm getting
rid
of the windows 2003 printserver and replacing it with a pair of linux 
printservers (Samba/Cups)

I'd like to have 2 (or 3) printservers, all the same build of linux 
(debian), cloned, etc.

users will be able to go to \\printserver and it'll pull up one of 
10.6.0.19, 10.6.0.20, etc.

Right now this works fine.  I've been serving over 505 printers on this 
now for 6 months and it's a good thing.  The issue I have is growing 
this to more than two servers - what if I want to have 5 servers, etc.

So, to my way of thinking, I'll have an nfs mount that is shared amongst 
all the servers - /var/cache/samba, /etc/samba, /etc/cups, 
/var/lib/samba, etc - whatever it is that samba changes.

Now... I'm guessing I'll need a filesystem able to deal with multiple 
servers using that mount as r/w, so maybe it'll be an iscsi mount with 
the right fs. 

Anyway, what I'm after is to make changes to one server and have it 
propagate to all servers.  i'm not concerned if I need to have a 
"special" server that I make the changes to, or if it's just that
I can
make changes to any in the"cluster".  i'm hesitant to actually
call this
a cluster as I'm not quite sure it's what I'm after.

anyway, anyone have suggestions for how to get this done?

thanks
Jack

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 11:28:50PM -0600, Jack Downes
wrote:
> Okay, before anything else, all I'm using samba for is a "Windows 
> looking" frontend to cups.  Eg, so the users don't know I'm
getting rid
> of the windows 2003 printserver and replacing it with a pair of linux 
> printservers (Samba/Cups)
> 
> I'd like to have 2 (or 3) printservers, all the same build of linux 
> (debian), cloned, etc.
> 
> users will be able to go to \\printserver and it'll pull up one of 
> 10.6.0.19, 10.6.0.20, etc.
> 
> Right now this works fine.  I've been serving over 505 printers on this
> now for 6 months and it's a good thing.  The issue I have is growing 
> this to more than two servers - what if I want to have 5 servers, etc.
> 
> So, to my way of thinking, I'll have an nfs mount that is shared
amongst
> all the servers - /var/cache/samba, /etc/samba, /etc/cups, 
> /var/lib/samba, etc - whatever it is that samba changes.
No, don't do that. NFS sucks for Samba data.
> Now... I'm guessing I'll need a filesystem able to deal with
multiple
> servers using that mount as r/w, so maybe it'll be an iscsi mount with 
> the right fs. 
That would be something like GFS, glusterfs or some
proprietary cluster file system. But I think that would be
overkill for your case.
> Anyway, what I'm after is to make changes to one server and have it 
> propagate to all servers.  i'm not concerned if I need to have a 
> "special" server that I make the changes to, or if it's just
that I can
> make changes to any in the"cluster".  i'm hesitant to
actually call this
> a cluster as I'm not quite sure it's what I'm after.
rsync?

Printing is separate enough I think so that you can live
with an rsync master and have the clients choose one server
by dns round-robin or so.

Volker
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