Load balancer (Networking)
Load balancing across multiple application instances is a commonly used technique for optimizing resource utilization, maximizing throughput, reducing latency, and ensuring fault‑tolerant configurations.
Load balancing in Nginx is configured using upstream directive.[1].
- Supported load balancing algorithms: Round Robin, Least Connections, IP Hash, Generic Hash, Least Time (Nginx Plus), Random
- Sticky methods (NGINX Plus): Sticky cookie, Sticky route (NGINX Plus), Sticky learn
Network load balancer can provide service for different protocols, such as TCP, UDP, HTTP or HTTPS.
Typical options:
- Listening port
- FQDN
- Protocol: TCP, UDP, HTTP, HTTPS, WebSockets
- Destination servers and destination port
- Load Balancing algorithm: WRR, weighted least connection, source IP hash
- Sticky session (session affinity)
Nginx configuration example
upstream backend {
# no load balancing method is specified for Round Robin. Other options: least_conn, ip_hash, least_time header, random two least_time=last_byte
server backend1.example.com slow_start=30s;
server backend2.example.com max_conns=3;
server backend3.example.com weight=5;
server backend4.example.com;
#server backend5.example.com:443; (if you are connecting to an https backend. Additional configuration is required)
server 192.0.0.1 backup;
#queue 100 timeout=70; (option if using max_conns directive)
}
HTTPS termination
Activities
- Read NGINX how to secure HTTP Traffic to Upstream Servers https://docs.nginx.com/nginx/admin-guide/security-controls/securing-http-traffic-upstream/
Related terms
See also
- HTTP, HTTP client, HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, HTTP/3, HTTPS, HSTS CSR, TLS, SSL,
openSSL, WebSockets, WebRTC,ssl_certificateQUIC, HPKP, CT, List of HTTP status codes, URL redirection, Content-type:, Webhook, HTTP headers,--insecure, Axios HTTP client, HTTP cookies, HTTP ETag, Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1 - Proxy servers:
Squid, Reverse proxy,Nginx,HAProxy,Varnish, Load balancer, Load Balancer as a Service (LBaaS), Symantec proxySG and Advanced Secure Gateway (ASG), Traefik, tinyproxy, Proxyrack, Luminati Networks, SOCKS, Envoy Proxy - Traefik
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