[LON-CAPA-cvs] cvs: doc /help domain.manual.texxml loncom/html/adm/help/tex Domain_Configuration_User_Sessions.tex

Tue Apr 7 17:16:24 EDT 2015

raeburn		Tue Apr  7 21:16:24 2015 EDT

  Modified files:              
    /loncom/html/adm/help/tex	Domain_Configuration_User_Sessions.tex 
    /doc/help	domain.manual.texxml 
  Log:
  - Update Domain Coordinator documentation for session hosting/offloading.
  
  
Index: loncom/html/adm/help/tex/Domain_Configuration_User_Sessions.tex
diff -u loncom/html/adm/help/tex/Domain_Configuration_User_Sessions.tex:1.2 loncom/html/adm/help/tex/Domain_Configuration_User_Sessions.tex:1.3

--- loncom/html/adm/help/tex/Domain_Configuration_User_Sessions.tex:1.2	Fri Jan 14 00:56:11 2011
+++ loncom/html/adm/help/tex/Domain_Configuration_User_Sessions.tex	Tue Apr  7 21:16:20 2015
@@ -1,4 +1,78 @@
 \label{Domain_Configuration_User_Sessions}
+Default domain configurations can be assigned for:
+
+\begin{itemize}
+
+\item Offloading sessions when busy, or prior to maintenance
+
+Starting with LON-CAPA 2.11, as Domain Coordinator you can use the web GUI to
+configure where your servers will offload user sessions (for new log-ins)
+when they are busy, if your server is a member of a cluster of servers. 
+
+If you have not yet configured offloading then the least busy of the servers
+listed in /home/httpd/lonTabs/spare.tab on each server will be used, if your server
+is found to be at over 100\% user load or 100\% server load.
+
+The default spare.tab file included with a LON-CAPA release includes four access  
+servers in the msu domain, and one access server in the csm domain.
+If your LON-CAPA domain is part of the LON-CAPA network then one of the five servers
+will host offloaded sessions from busy servers in your domain. 
+Once offloading has been configured using the GUI, the spare.tab files on your servers 
+will no longer be consulted, since offload settings for your domain will now be 
+stored centrally in the configuration.db file for your domain.  Changes
+made via the web GUI are propagated immediately to all servers in your domain. 
+
+The load limits which are used to compute percentage load are currently set on each 
+server when you run UPDATE to install LON-CAPA (or update to a new release).
+The defaults are: Server Load: 2.00; User Load: 0.
+
+These values can also be set by editing the /etc/httpd/conf/loncapa.conf file 
+(CentOS, Scientific Linux, RHEL, Fedora) or the /etc/apache2/loncapa.conf file
+(SuSE, SLES, Ubuntu), and setting values for lonLoadLim and/or lonUserLoadLim.
+(Web server reload required after making changes to loncapa.conf).
+
+The percent server load is computed from: 100 * loadavg/lonLoadLim, and 
+percent user load is computed from 100 * activeusers/lonUserLoadLim.
+
+If you do not wish to restrict the number of active user sessions on your server
+set the User Load (i.e., lonUserLoadLim) to 0.
+
+The loadavg comes from the one minute average for CPU utiization, i.e., the 
+first number in the output from cat /proc/loadavg.
+
+The activeusers total is the number of user session files in
+/home/httpd/lonIDs which have modification times within the last 30 minutes.
+
+The ``User session hosting/offloading'' option in the domain configuration GUI
+allows you to set where user sessions will be offloaded, separately for each 
+server in your domain.  You can designate offload servers as either primary or default.
+Primary servers are considered first when seeking to offload a user session.
+
+Ordinarily, session offloading only occurs when a user first logs in.  However,
+you can also choose to offload all active users from a particular server by
+checking the ``Switch active users on next access'' checkbox for that server.
+You might use this feature if you wanted to take an access server out of the 
+pool of servers in your domain for maintenance (all sessions are switched
+regardless of current load values, with the exception of Domain Coordinators).
+
+Notes: 
+\begin{enumerate}
+
+\item
+As this type of offload happens on page load, it requires the user to be 
+actively interacting with the system (i.e., the web browser needs to request 
+a page). 
+
+\item
+Any transactions resulting from the original page request (e.g.,  
+grading of a homework submission) will be completed on the server  
+before the output containing the server switch function is returned to  
+the client. 
+
+\end{enumerate}
+ 
+\item Session Hosting
+
 Starting with LON-CAPA 2.10, as Domain Coordinator you can configure a domain 
 to include constraints on where sessions for users from your domain may be 
 hosted, and also which other domains may have their users hosted on your  
@@ -9,13 +83,13 @@
 then options to control user session hosting are unavailable, as they
 do not make sense in this context.
 
-Default domain configurations can be assigned for: 
-
 \begin{itemize}
 \item Hosting of users from other domains. 
 
-  There are two types of setting: ``Allow all, but exclude specific domains'' or ``Deny all, but include specific domains''.  In both cases the options are (a) for the setting to be in use, or (b) not be in use (the default).  If in use, then checkboxes can be checked for any ``internet domains'' for which the constraint is to apply. Internet domains encompass all servers at a particular institution, and also any aliases used on a multiple domain server.  For example, there is a single internet domain for educog.com.  Constraints for that internet domain will apply to all *.educog.com servers, as well as all domains on the multi-domain educog server.  On a multiple domain server, session hosting constraints are defined in a single domain - the default domain included in the loncapa.conf file (e.g., the ``author'' domain for ``educog.com'').
+There are two types of setting: ``Allow all, but exclude specific domains'' or ``Deny all, but include specific domains''.  In both cases the options are (a) for the setting to be in use, or (b) not be in use (the default).  If in use, then checkboxes can be checked for any ``internet domains'' for which the constraint is to apply. Internet domains encompass all servers at a particular institution, and also any aliases used on a multiple domain server.  For example, there is a single internet domain for educog.com.  Constraints for that internet domain will apply to all *.educog.com servers, as well as all domains on the multi-domain educog server.  On a multiple domain server, session hosting constraints are defined in a single domain - the default domain included in the loncapa.conf file (e.g., the ``author'' domain for ``educog.com'').
 \item Hosting domain's own users elsewhere. 
 
-  Again the same two types of setting are available: (a) ``Allow all, but exclude specific domains'' or (b) ``Deny all, but include specific domains''.  There is a third type of setting: ``LON-CAPA version requirement'', which, in common with the other two can be set to be:  ``in use'', or ``not in use'' (the default).  This setting can be used to require that sessions for users in your domain are not hosted on LON-CAPA versions which predate a particular selected version.  
+Again the same two types of setting are available: (a) ``Allow all, but exclude specific domains'' or (b) ``Deny all, but include specific domains''.  There is a third type of setting: ``LON-CAPA version requirement'', which, in common with the other two can be set to be:  ``in use'', or ``not in use'' (the default).  This setting can be used to require that sessions for users in your domain are not hosted on LON-CAPA versions which predate a particular selected version.  
+\end{itemize}
+
 \end{itemize}
Index: doc/help/domain.manual.texxml
diff -u doc/help/domain.manual.texxml:1.17 doc/help/domain.manual.texxml:1.18
--- doc/help/domain.manual.texxml:1.17	Thu Mar 26 16:05:28 2015
+++ doc/help/domain.manual.texxml	Tue Apr  7 21:16:24 2015
@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@
         <subsection name="Access to Server Status Pages">
                 <file name="Domain_Configuration_Server_Status.tex" />
         </subsection>
-        <subsection name="User Session Hosting">
+        <subsection name="User Session Hosting/Offloading">
                 <file name="Domain_Configuration_User_Sessions.tex" />
         </subsection>
         <subsection name="Load Balancing with Dedicated LON-CAPA Server">


