How does LVS-DR work?

[David Fix]

> Lets say a client makes a connection to your LVS, the LVS forwards that
> packet to a realserver, and the realserver then directly replies to the
> original client.  Why does the realserver send the packet to the
> originating client and not back to the LVS it came from?  It would see
> to me that under normal network situations, the realserver should reply
> back to wherever the request came from (LVS in this case), but it
> doesn't.  The only thing I can come up with is that the LVS doesn't use
> its own MAC address as the source-mac on the packets going to the
> realserver.  It uses the MAC address of whatever sent the original
> packets to the LVS (possibly a router?).  Is that how it works?

Nope...  :)  The director actually forwards the packet to the realserver and
the realserver thinks it came from the client...  The realserver sends back
a reply to the IP that the packet originated from, and since the director
doesn't change the packet's originator, it goes back to the client.

	Dave  :)