iptakeover by alias rather than changing IP

[Matthew Sackman]

Hi all.

(I'm new to HA, so please excuse me if this is daft or
has already been implemented).

Some hosting companies, which will take colocation servers
(you build, they host) don't allow you to use local IPs on
their network (not when attached to their switches anyway).

Therefore, when using ha, if box A goes down and box B has
to take over the IP, you have to have a standby IP on box B
that can take over box A's dead IP. But if the hosting
company doesn't let you use privert IPs then you have to have
a redundant public IP which seems rather silly and wasteful
IMHO.

Therefore, would it not be possible to specify for the
standby address an interface rather than an IP? Then the
script would simply check whether the interface exists, if
it does then it takes it down (if not already), alters it,
and then brings it back up. If the interface doesn't exist,
then it creates it and brings it up.

>From checking the archives I can see that this has kind of
been proposed before, but I can't see whether it's been
implemented or not. From various docs I've read, it seems
that it hasn't yet. I would happily try to do the coding myself
if someone could point out to me which files/routines contain
the sections I need to alter.

Thanks for your time,

Matthew

-- 

Matthew Sackman
Nottingham
England

BOFH Excuse Board:
positron router malfunction