Hi Tracy,
Scaling packetfence requires some knowledge of not only the number of requests 
but also things such as database and authentication source latency.

You may well be constrained more by ntlm_auth times (if using Active-Directory 
for instance) than by the specs of the PacketFence servers themselves.

While LVS can be used as a load balancer, PF 5 includes an active/active mode 
that would at least load balance the radius traffic on it’s own.

So while 4 server may be enough, it’s impossible to say if it is right for you. 
There are too many variables. 
How much RAM/CPU will each of them have? 
How is your load spread (does it spike at specific times of the day or is that 
constant)? 
What authentication sources and rules are you using in the backend? AD 
authentication rarely goes much faster than 30 auths/seconds while pure LDAP is 
much faster.

I suggest you benchmark your setup as you build it. 
Try to see at how many auth/s does your radius start to eat all the CPU  (which 
means it is waiting for an authentication backend and queries are piling up).

Each large PacketFence installation is different in it’s own way.

Regards,
--
Louis Munro
[email protected]  ::  www.inverse.ca 
+1.514.447.4918 x125  :: +1 (866) 353-6153 x125
Inverse inc. :: Leaders behind SOGo (www.sogo.nu) and PacketFence 
(www.packetfence.org)

On Jun 9, 2015, at 10:53 , Tracy Adams <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> I'm planning for deployment of about 4 packetfence servers. The servers
> will be doing authentication of WiFi clients. Not inline.
> My manager wants me to use LVS as the load balancer in front of the pf
> servers. Is this a good option, or does pf have a build in form of load
> balancing. I can put only 2 RADIUS servers IP into my wireless
> controllers.
> 
> Also I expect about 50K devices during peek times, is 4 pf servers enough
> or should I have more.
> 
> Thanks,
> Tracy
> 
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