Hi,

We would like to return site-specific error messages to visitors when 
the back-end server cannot be reached. For example, we have all our web 
sites pointing to the reverse proxy, which then passes through to our 
back-end web server.

The sites run under different brand-names however and as such, when the 
back-end server fails and the 503 error is returned by Pound, we would 
like to be able to choose which error page is returned, determined by 
the hostname, to ensure the correct branding.

We currently have the following in the pound.cfg file:

Err503          "/usr/local/errors/pound_ri.503"

However, this is a top-level directive and cannot, as far as we are 
aware, be placed within a UrlGroup directive. It would be nice to be 
able to do something like this:

UrlGroup        ".*"
         HeadRequire     Host    ".*ajt.*"
         BackEnd 192.168.1.1,80,1
         Err503          "/usr/local/errors/pound_ajt.503"
EndGroup

However doing that at present results in the last Err503 statement in 
the config file being used for all UrlGroups.

Is this a possibility for inclusion?

Also, I have read the previous posts regarding a preference of 0 on 
back-end servers. This would mean that the 0 preference server would 
never be contacted unless all other servers in that UrlGroup were 
unavailable.

This would help us with the above issue if it were a possibility to do 
this, since we could redirect requests to a different back-end server 
which could determine the hostname and return the appropriate "site 
unavailable" page, i.e.:

UrlGroup        ".*"
         HeadRequire     Host    ".*ajt.*"
         BackEnd 192.168.1.1,80,1
	BackEnd 192.168.1.2,80,0
EndGroup

The server 192.168.1.2 would *only* be contacted if the 192.168.1.1 
server was unavailable, then 192.168.1.2 could return the error page, 
branded depending on the URL.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.
[...]

Am Dienstag, 29. März 2005 12:57 schrieben Sie:[...]

I like the idea, as long it is optional. by the way, I think the possible size 
for the error-page is way too small right now...and it would be really nice 
if pound was able to deliver images for the error-pages as well, although I 
understand that this isn't really what pound is for :-)
[...]

I really would appreciate such a scheme, maybe even a little bit more 
sophisticated by a notion of negative priorities, which would only come into 
play if all backends with positive priorities fail.

Cheers, Sascha

Wed, Mar 30, 2005 ve 10:21:06AM +0200, Sascha Ottolski napsal:[...]

I fully agree. I think there should be nice error page in situation when all 
servers are down. Not only text message... it looks like we have
everything under control. I think its important to every company....
[...]
[...]

On Wednesday 30 March 2005 16:34, Ondra Kudlik wrote:[...]

Thanks for the suggestion - it's already on the wish-list for 2.0.[...]