Quick Start Guide

This guide walks you through creating your first load-balanced service with Tula. By the end, you will have a working Virtual IP (VIP) distributing traffic across multiple backend servers.

Prerequisites

Before proceeding, ensure that:

• Tula is installed, powered on, and accessible via the web interface.
• You have changed the default admin password and activated your license.
• You have at least two backend servers running the service you wish to load balance.

Step 1: Log In to the Web Interface

Open your browser and navigate to https://<appliance-ip-address>. Log in with your administrator credentials. You will be directed to the NetMan dashboard, which provides an overview of system status and configured services.

Step 2: Create a Virtual IP (VIP)

A VIP is the entry point for client traffic. It defines the IP address, port, and protocol that clients connect to.

1. Navigate to Load Balancing > Virtual IPs in the sidebar.
2. Click Add VIP.
3. Complete the required fields:
   • Name: A descriptive identifier for this service (e.g., web-frontend).
   • IP Address: The virtual IP address that clients will connect to. This address must be available on the network and not assigned to another host.
   • Port: The listening port (e.g., 80 for HTTP, 443 for HTTPS).
   • Protocol: Select the appropriate protocol. Choose TCP for Layer 4 load balancing or HTTP/HTTPS for Layer 7.
   • Algorithm: Select a load balancing algorithm. Round Robin is a good default for most workloads.
4. Click Save to create the VIP.

Step 3: Add Backend Servers

Backend servers (also called real servers) are the targets that receive traffic from the VIP.

1. Within the VIP configuration, navigate to the Backends section.
2. Click Add Backend.
3. For each backend server, provide:
   • Name: A label for the backend (e.g., web-01).
   • IP Address: The real IP address of the backend server.
   • Port: The port the backend is listening on.
   • Weight: The relative traffic share for this backend. A weight of 1 distributes traffic equally among all backends with the same weight.
4. Repeat for each additional backend server.
5. Click Save after adding all backends.

Step 4: Configure Health Checks

Health checks ensure that Tula only sends traffic to healthy backends.

1. In the VIP configuration, navigate to the Health Checks section.
2. Enable health checking and configure the check parameters:
   • Check Type: Select TCP for a basic port check, or HTTP for an application-level check.
   • Interval: How frequently to check each backend (e.g., every 5 seconds).
   • Timeout: How long to wait for a response before marking a check as failed.
   • Threshold: The number of consecutive failures before removing a backend from the pool.
3. Click Save.

Step 5: Apply the Configuration

Changes in Tula are staged until explicitly applied.

1. Click the Apply Configuration button in the top navigation bar. This button appears with a notification badge when there are pending changes.
2. Review the summary of pending changes and confirm the apply action.
3. Tula will generate the underlying HAProxy or nftlb configuration, validate it, and reload the appropriate services.

Verify Traffic Distribution

To confirm that traffic is being balanced across your backends:

1. Navigate to Monitoring > Statistics to view real-time connection and throughput metrics for your VIP and each backend.
2. Send test requests to the VIP address and confirm that responses are served by different backends.
3. Verify that health check status shows all backends as healthy.

Your first load-balanced service is now operational. Explore the documentation to learn about Layer 4 and Layer 7 load balancing, session persistence, SSL termination, and high availability.