Include::RAWblog

“*Pound*”:http://www.apsis.ch/pound/ is a “*reverse proxy*”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_proxy, “*load balancer*”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_balancer and HTTPS front-end for
Web server(s).

I use this reverse proxy to pass all HTTP requests from the web to it’s refering backend HTTP server.

Well, about the post!

Last week after updating all my reverse proxys (yes I have a bunch of them ) I have noticed that *the configuration syntax has changed without any alert*! Dam it!

It is known as “best practices” under “*FreeBSD*”:http://www.freebsd.org, to write this kind of stuff/alerts under */usr/ports/UPDATING* for everybody to read before updating anything! But … the Pound’s port maintainer didn’t followed this “rule”!

Let’s take a look to it’s config right now.

1) Updating Pound!

% portupgrade pound

This simple step to upgrade pound will work just fine if you have “*sysutils/portupgrade*”:http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/url.cgi?ports/sysutils/portupgrade/pkg-descr installed. To install it just run:

% cd /usr/ports/sysutils/portupgrade ; make install clean

Now lets continue with pound.

The rc.d script under FreeBSD lives in */usr/local/etc/rc.d/pound* and this is just fine!

The config file is placed in */usr/local/etc/pound.cfg*

2) Backing up “things”

% cd /usr/local/etc
% mv pound.cfg pound.cfg_oldconfig

3) Now use your editor of choice and …

% vim pound.cfg

And take a look to my pound configuration file

#
Alive 20
LogLevel 4

ListenHTTP
Address 192.168.1.15
Port 80

Service
HeadRequire “Host: . * www . sufixo . com . * ”
BackEnd
Address 192.168.1.17
Port 80
End
End

Service
HeadRequire “Host: . * . sufixo . com . * ”
BackEnd
Address 192.168.1.17
Port 80
End
End

End

+*ALERT*: In the HeadRequire flag, REMOVE all spaces after the “host:+

And thats all folks bye! … hey *don’t forget to restar your Pound*

% /usr/local/etc/rc.d/pound restart

If is the very first time you install Pound, please don’t forget to “inform the system you want it to be started at boot time.

% echo pound_enable=”YES” > /etc/rc.conf.local

and now it’s all bye once again!