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What is IPVS?

IPVS (Internet Protocol Virtual Server) is a high-performance load balancer included in the Linux kernel. It efficiently distributes network traffic across multiple servers, preventing bottlenecks and ensuring reliability. IPVS supports various load balancing algorithms, such as round-robin and least connections, and handles protocols like TCP, UDP, and SCTP. It's particularly suited for high-traffic environments, capable of managing tens of thousands of connections per second.

A standard implementation of IPVS in an L4 (Layer 4) scenario involves setting up IPVS to manage TCP or UDP traffic. For example, consider a web server cluster with three servers. IPVS can be configured to distribute incoming HTTP requests (TCP protocol) among these servers using the least connections algorithm. This ensures that the server with the fewest active connections receives the next request, balancing the load and optimizing resource utilization.

Overall, IPVS provides transparent, high-performance load balancing, seamlessly redirecting user requests to backend servers and integrating with other Linux networking components for added functionality.

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