What is Keepalived ?
The main goal of the keepalived project is to add a strong & robust keepalive facility to the Linux Virtual Server project. This project is written in C with multilayer TCP/IP stack checks. Keepalived implements a framework based on three family checks : Layer3, Layer4 & Layer5/7. This framework gives the daemon the ability of checking a LVS server pool states. When one of the server of the LVS server pool is down, keepalived informs the linux kernel via a setsockopt call to remove this server entrie from the LVS topology. In addition keepalived implements an independent VRRPv2 stack to handle director failover. So in short keepalived is a userspace daemon for LVS cluster nodes healthchecks and LVS directors failover.
Why using Keepalived ?
If your are using a LVS director to loadbalance a server pool in a production environnement, you may want to have a robust solution for healthcheck & failover.
What about licence ?
Keepalived is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
reference:
http://www.sapub.net/html/y2010/use-keepalived-nginx-proxy-multiple-https.html