[Zope] ANNOUNCE: Pound - reverse proxy and load balancer - v1.0

[Eron Lloyd]

Awesome! This seems like a great app...Squid seems like a bear to setup f=
or=20
proxy handling, yet this is designed much simpler (and efficient!). Does=20
Squid provide much more than Pound (besides caching and now ESI)? When do=
es=20
it make sense to use Squid vs. Pound? I imagine Pound would be more=20
appropriate on a faster pipe, where caching isn't as big an issue...

Thanks for new release!

Eron

On Thursday 31 October 2002 10:33 am, Robert Segall wrote:
> This is to announce the release of Pound v1.0.
>
> New in this release:
>
> - Pound is now declared to be production-quality code
> - fixed a few minor problems, such as the ordering of certificate file
> - removed thread auto clean-up due to a bug in the Linux implementation=
 of
> libpthread
> - added support for additional WebDAV commands (Microsoft-style)
> - restructured request match patterns
> - added support for HA ports for back-end hosts
> - added support for optional HTTPS extra header
>
> The software is at version 1.0 (production quality). Further testing
> (especially under heavy loads), improvements and suggestions are welcom=
e.
>
> What is Pound (from the Web page)
>
> - a reverse-proxy: it passes requests from client browsers to one or mo=
re
> back-end servers.
> - a load balancer: it will distribute the requests from the client brow=
sers
> among several back-end servers, while keeping session information.
> - an SSL wrapper: Pound will decrypt HTTPS requests from client browser=
s
> and pass them as plain HTTP to the back-end browsers.
> - an HTTP/HTTPS sanitizer: Pound will verify requests for correctness a=
nd
> accept only well-formed ones.
> - an HTTP/1.1 to 1.0 proxy.
> - a fail-over-server: should a back-end server fail, Pound will take no=
te
> of the fact and stop passing requests to it until it recovers.
> - a request redirector - it will pass client requests to separate group=
s of
> servers, based on required URL and the presence or absence of headers
> (pattern matching)
>
> Pound was specifically developed to serve as a front-end for multiple
> instances of Zope running on top of a common ZEO storage, but can be us=
ed
> with any other web server. A patch for the Python source of z2.py is
> available as part of the distribution to allow using Pound's SSL
> capabilities.
>
> Pound is currently in use in several medium to large volume sites and s=
eems
> to be holding up quite well: largest reported site does about 3.5 milli=
on
> requests per day, peaking at over 300 requests per second. The speed is
> well superior to other, equivalent solutions, the configuration is much
> simpler and the necessary resources (CPU, RAM, disk) are much, much low=
er.
>
> Pound is distributed under the GPL.
>
> For further information, download, etc. please see
> http://www.apsis.ch/pound
>
> Enjoy and let me know how it works for you.