using natd to load balance port 80 to multiple servers

[Stephane Raimbault]

Hi All,

I'm currently using a freebsd box running natd to forward port 80 to several 
(5) web servers on private IP's.

I have discovered that natd doesn't handle many requests/second all that 
well (seem to choke at about 200 req/second (educated guess))

There are other packet filtering options on FreeBSD and I wonder if I can 
use them to do what I'm trying to do with natd.

Would someone be able to point me to documentation or help me have either 
ipf/ipfw/pf forward port 80 traffic to private space IP's?

Is there a better way of split port 80 traffic across multiple webservers 
that has elduded me?  Other then a comercial content switch that is :)

I've worked with the loadd port and ran into some problems, so I resulted in 
simply using some natd syntax to forward port 80 traffic to multiple 
servers... Now that seems to have run to it's limitation and I'm wondering 
if I can do the same thing with ipf/ipfw/pf as I believe that might be a bit 
more efficient.

Any feedback would be appreciated...

Thanks,
Stephane.

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