Silo's Quick Host functionality allows customers to connect to the quickest host connection available and not to one that is geographically or manually set.
System Requirements
With Quick Host functionality, Silo begins by trying to connect to each configured data center and uses the first connected host.
Here are the prerequisites for Quick Host installation:
A Windows installation of Silo; Quick Host is for Windows only.
The Silo native client must be installed, version 2.97 or later.
Though not required, a working knowledge of updating a registry is helpful.
Configuration
The Quick Host configuration steps are limited to:
Ensure that Silo is configured to connect to more than one data center.
An optional step is to modify the native client with the proper registry settings to include Quick Host. The default setting for a missing registry entry is ON, so there is no need to include it in the registry, unless you want to deactivate Quick Host.
Silo Location Settings
Ensure that Silo is configured for more than one data center location, in the Silo Location settings located in the Silo Admin Console. If your launcher server setting is limited to one, then add additional data center locations in order to fulfill the Quick Host requirement.
Please see the section entitled "Authentic8 Silo & Toolbox Browser Location Settings" in Understanding IP Address for Geo-location for additional information on adding data center locations.
The Native Client Registry
Quick Host is enabled without any required changes to the native client registry. However, if you want to turn off Quick Host, you will need to make the registry updates detailed below.
The Quick Host registry setting is named: UseQuickHost.
To deactivate Quick Host: modify the native client registry with UseQuickHost being set to 0.
Quick Host Sample Registry
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Authentic8,Inc.\Authentic8]
"UseQuickHost"=dword:00000000
Notes
- A Quick Host registry entry is only required to turn the service off, since the default setting (i.e., when UseQuickHost is not present) for Quick Host is ON.
- Quick Host is OFF in the above sample.
UseQuickHost Settings
UseQuickHost Value | Quick Host Setting |
0 | Quick Host is set to OFF. |
1 | Quick Host is set to ON. |
No registry entry | When there is no UseQuickHost registry entry, then Quick Host is set to ON. This is the default setting for UseQuickHost. |
Silo Host Connection Process
Quick Host ON/OFF | Silo Host Connection Process |
ON | When Quick Host is ON, Silo begins the connection process to all set regional data centers, with the first host connection becoming the working connection. |
OFF | When Quick Host is off, Silo will try and use the "closest" data center. This is determined by comparing the geo-location of the IP address (as determined by Maxmind.com) with the coordinates of the application servers which are recorded in our database. Note: Please see the Silo document, Understanding IP Address Geo-location for additional information on location setting. |
Sample Log Entries
Here is a sample of the Quick Host connection process as seen through log entries.
14:49:00.582 INFO: Establishing connections to Session Hosts and finding a quick one 14:49:00.582 INFO: Connect Monitor :waiting for a quick session host from 5 session hosts 14:49:00.583 STATUS: Session Host 0 :Session will go directly to the server (app-gce-west-lb1.authentic8.com:443) 14:49:00.583 STATUS: Session Host 1 :Session will go directly to the server (app-gce-east-lb1.authentic8.com:443) 14:49:00.583 STATUS: Session Host 0 :Establishing Secure Session With app-gce-west-lb1.authentic8.com Port 443 14:49:00.583 STATUS: Session Host 2 :Session will go directly to the server (app-gce-asia-lb1.authentic8.com:443) 14:49:00.583 STATUS: Session Host 1 :Establishing Secure Session With app-gce-east-lb1.authentic8.com Port 443 14:49:00.583 STATUS: Session Host 3 :Session will go directly to the server (app-gce-europe-lb1.authentic8.com:443) 14:49:00.583 STATUS: Session Host 2 :Establishing Secure Session With app-gce-asia-lb1.authentic8.com Port 443 14:49:00.583 STATUS: Session Host 4 :Session will go directly to the server (app-gce-asia-lb2.authentic8.com:443) 14:49:00.584 STATUS: Session Host 3 :Establishing Secure Session With app-gce-europe-lb1.authentic8.com Port 443 14:49:00.584 STATUS: Session Host 4 :Establishing Secure Session With app-gce-asia-lb2.authentic8.com Port 443
14:49:01.238 INFO: Connection Info : Session Host 1 : Success, connection time 359 ms (app-gce-east-lb1.authentic8.com:443) 14:49:01.238 INFO: Connection Info : Session Host 2 : Success, connection time 609 ms (app-gce-asia-lb1.authentic8.com:443) 14:49:01.238 INFO: Connection Info : Session Host 3 : Success, connection time 593 ms (app-gce-europe-lb1.authentic8.com:443) 14:49:01.238 INFO: Connection Info : Session Host 4 : Success, connection time 656 ms (app-gce-asia-lb2.authentic8.com:443) 14:49:01.238 INFO: Connection Info : use Session Host 0 (app-gce-west-lb1.authentic8.com:443) for current session 14:49:02.089 INFO: Client version is good. Proceeding. |
Resources
Understanding IP Address Geo-location
Additional Notes
Please contact Support if you have any additional questions and/or require further information.