Hi Ashesh,

These pages describe the addressing scheme:

http://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/2.4.0-RC2/general/addressing.html
http://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/2.4.0-RC2/general/remoting.html#Peer-to-Peer_vs__Client-Server
(also describe how to separate bind-port from external logical port - this
is only available in 2.4-RC2, not in the 2.3 series).

In general an ActorRef represents a certain actor on a certain machine, not
a certain actor on a pool of machines - i.e. it does not work well with
external load balancing. There are routers though that solve this at the
app level: http://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/2.4.0-RC2/scala/routing.html

If you really want to use external load balancing then you cannot use
Remoting with it. In this case you can use any of the other technologies
that Akka provides for communication between systems (actor or not):
 - akka.io for actor based TCP and UDP APIs (
http://doc.akka.io/api/akka/2.4.0-RC2/#akka.io.package)
 - akka.streams.io for stream based TCP and UDP APIs (
http://doc.akka.io/api/akka-stream-and-http-experimental/1.0/#akka.stream.io.package
)
 - Spray, for actor based HTTP (http://spray.io)
 - Akka HTTP (
http://doc.akka.io/docs/akka-stream-and-http-experimental/1.0/scala/http/index.html
)

Remoting is just one of the possible solutions with a certain set of
trade-offs. You can even mix-and-match, for example an internal set of
systems form a cluster A, using remoting between them, another set of
systems form cluster B, using remoting between them, and then A and B
communicate via HTTP using load balancing.

-Endre

On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 2:47 PM, Ashesh Ambasta <[email protected]>
wrote:

> In my case, this is the situation:
> I’m using Marathon to execute Docker containers with my Akka applications.
> Now, Marathon, along with Marathon-DNS assigns each set of instances of a
> running service a DNS, so something like app-a.marathon.mesos (if marathon
> is running inside mesos). Now, every request to app-a.marathon.mesos goes
> through an LB which can go to any one of the running instances of app-a.
>
> Now, app-a wants to ask an actor on app-b and app-b replies to the
> `sender()`, which should be the actor on `app-a`. Now I’m in a soup because:
>
>    - I run app-a and bind it to listen for remoting on either the IP of
>    the host its container is running on, in that case, only the reply part
>    works correctly, because the asking actor is associated correctly.
>    - I run app-a and ask it to bind to `app-a.marathon.mesos`, in which
>    case, I see the sender on `app-b` as `[email protected]`
>    which is *correct* but it doesn’t have a specific reference to where
>    the message came from.
>
> I think the assumption is that the binding address per actor system is
> unique.
>
> Best,
>
> Ashesh Ambasta
> www.asheshambasta.com
>
> On 09 Sep 2015, at 14:37, Endre Varga <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hi Ashesh,
>
> On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 2:25 PM, Ashesh Ambasta <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> Thank you for your time Endre.
>>
>> Well, in my opinion, that is something that needs to be documented.
>> Because in my *answering* actor, I was using `sender()` to reply back.
>> In this case, the use of the word `sender` implies that some reference to
>> the actual actor that sent the message is maintained, whereas, it isn’t.
>>
>
> It is maintained, why do you concluded it isn't? Can you demonstrate with
> a failing test case where sender() does not work?
>
> The problem with a load balancer is that it reroutes TCP connections, so
> an unsuspecting actor system thinks it connects to a certains system A
> while it ends up being connected to B. Then it sends out messages that it
> thinks should go to A, and then B rightly refuses them since those messages
> are not destined for B, but A.
>
> -Endre
>
>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Ashesh Ambasta
>> www.asheshambasta.com
>>
>> On 09 Sep 2015, at 14:19, Akka Team <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Ashesh,
>>
>> You cannot use Akka Remoting with a load balancer. Any message send
>> targets a specific actor on a specific system (this is what an ActorRef
>> is), you cannot just take them and reroute them to unsuspecting systems.
>>
>> You can either use Akka Routers to implement your balancing (no need for
>> external load balancer), or you must use another technology to connect your
>> containers (like HTTP; for example Akka Http or Spray).
>>
>> -Endre
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 7:04 PM, Ashesh Ambasta <[email protected]>
>>  wrote:
>>
>>> Hi guys,
>>>
>>> We're a young startup and we decided to stick with Akka for our
>>> production deployments. But we recently ran into a minefield of problems
>>> <http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32461282/akka-ask-through-a-load-balancer>
>>>  trying to set up our Akka applications on our new Mesosphere cluster
>>> where we use Marathon to deploy and run applications inside Docker
>>> containers.
>>>
>>> I've really run out of options at this time and this is my remoting
>>> configuration:
>>>
>>> # Remoting configuration
>>> app {
>>>   host = ${?APP_HOST}
>>>   akka {
>>>     port = 11112
>>>   }
>>> }
>>> akka {
>>>   loglevel = DEBUG
>>>   jvm-exit-on-fatal-error = false
>>>   log-dead-letters = 1
>>>   actor {
>>>     provider = "akka.remote.RemoteActorRefProvider"
>>>   }
>>>   remote {
>>>     enabled-transports = ["akka.remote.netty.tcp"]
>>>     netty.tcp {
>>>       hostname = ""
>>>       port = ${?app.akka.port}
>>>
>>>
>>>       bind-hostname = ${?app.host}
>>>       bind-port = ${?app.akka.port}
>>>     }
>>>   }
>>> }
>>>
>>>
>>> When other remote actors `ask` an actor remotely, this is what I see in
>>> my logs:
>>> [DEBUG] [09/08/2015 16:54:22.909] [application-akka.remote.default-
>>> remote-dispatcher-8] [Remoting] Associated[akka.tcp://
>>> [email protected]:11112] <- [akka.tcp://[email protected]:11120]
>>> [ERROR] [09/08/2015 16:54:22.925] [application-akka.remote.default-
>>> remote-dispatcher-7][akka.tcp://
>>> [email protected]:11112/system/endpointManager/reliableEndpointWriter-akka.tcp%3A%2F%2Fapplication%4010.0.2.23%3A11120-1/endpointWriter]
>>> dropping message [class akka.actor.ActorSelectionMessage] for non-local
>>> recipient 
>>> [Actor[akka.tcp://[email protected]:11112/]]
>>> arriving at [akka.tcp://[email protected]:11112]
>>> inbound addresses are [akka.tcp://[email protected]:11112]
>>>
>>> What would be the best way to handle this?
>>>
>>> I've been trying my best to ask this question on Stackoverflow/IRC, but
>>> I've had no replies.
>>>
>>> I'll appreciate any help.
>>>
>>> --
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
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>> Typesafe - Reactive apps on the JVM
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>> Twitter: @akkateam
>>
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-- 
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Blog: letitcrash.com
Twitter: @akkateam

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