Reverse Proxy Servers: Key Benefits, Configurations, and Solutions 

A reverse proxy server is a server that sits between client devices and backend servers.

Unlike a forward proxy that handles client requests and forwards them to a server on the internet, a reverse proxy handles requests from the internet and forwards them to servers on an internal network.  

Here are the key functions and benefits of a reverse proxy server: 

Key Functions & Benefits: 

• Load Balancing: Distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers to ensure no single server becomes overwhelmed, improving overall performance and availability. 

• Security: Provides additional security by masking the identity and structure of backend servers, protecting them from direct exposure to potential malicious actors. 

• SSL Termination: Handles SSL encryption and decryption, freeing backend servers from the processing load of SSL/TLS, which will improve performance. 

• Authentication: Can enforce authentication policies before allowing access to backend servers, ensuring that only authorized users can access certain resources and network locations. 

Popular Reverse Proxy Software: 

Nginx 

Nginx is open source, meaning it can be configured to suit a plethora of business needs and is why it is one of the most widely used web server software in the world. 

Use Cases: Load balancing, caching, SSL termination, compression, web serving. 

Features: High performance, scalability, and low resource usage. It’s widely used in web applications for its flexibility and robustness. 

HAProxy 

High Availability Proxy, or HAProxy, is a free, open-source software that provides high availability load balancing and proxying services. 

Use Cases: Load balancing, SSL termination, health checks, high availability. 

Features: Known for its reliability, high performance, and ability to handle large amounts of traffic. Often used in environments requiring high availability and fault tolerance. 

Apache HTTP Server (mod_proxy) 

Use Cases: Load balancing, caching, SSL termination. 

Features: Extensible with a wide range of modules, including mod_proxy for reverse proxy functionality. It’s a versatile choice for many web applications. 

The reverse proxies that we use 

We utilise several software solutions for our networking, including forward and reverse proxying.

The two main reverse proxy server software solutions we use are Nginx and HAProxy, which provide multiple benefits for our load balancing and CDN. 

Users of our Reseller and Managed Hosting services will automatically use our Load Balancers and CDN reverse proxy services.

For resellers, this will also apply to your customers too! 

For our CDN, we utilise Nginx for the CDN caching and we use HAProxy for DDoS protection, forwarding and other security features. 

Configuring VPS Load Balancing 

Our VPS come with more freedom and customisation options when it comes to load balancing.

For just £9.99 per month, we will balance traffic between your servers and allow you to configure the load balancing to operate as you need.  

You can configure how each VPS operates from the following options: 

• Health Check – allows your load balancer to run health check requests periodically against your server. 

• Use Proxy Protocol – forwards the original client information to your server. 

• Use as Backup – Acts as a redundant server that will be balanced to if the health check detects a primary server is being down otherwise requests won’t be balanced to this server. 

You can manage how the load balancing operates from the following options: 

• Name – This is what you’d like your load balancer to be called. This is just for your reference. 

• Balancing Algorithm – The load balancing algorithm determines what method the load balancer uses to divert traffic between your selected VPS servers. 

• Round Robin – Server A > Server B > Server C > Server A > Server B > Server C… 

• Source – Balances a single client IP to the same server (as long as it’s healthy) 

• Least Connections – Balances to the server with the least number of connections 

• Mode – Choose between HTTP and TCP protocols depending on your needs. 

• Listen Port – Specify the port that the load balancer should listen on for connections. 

• Health Check URL – Set a URL that guests should make a request to when performing health checks. 

• Interval – This is the frequency at which a health check is run. By default, this is set to 5000ms or 5 seconds. 

• Rise – Number of successful health checks before a server is put back in balancing after a failure. 

• Fall – Number of failed checks before a server is removed from balancing. 

• Accept Proxy – Forwards client information through the Load Balancer to the attached backend guest instances. A human-readable header is added to the request with information such as the original client IP address. This may help in situations where you need to access the original client information in your logs, or for other purposes. You must make sure your VPS is configured to process the proxy protocol information. 

Creating your own Reverse Proxy Server 

If you would like to go further into the configuration of the load balancing, you can set up your own software on one of your VPS servers to balance traffic to your other servers. 

You are given full root access on our VPS servers, so you can install, configure, and utilise, whichever reverse proxy software that you need. 

Some companies, like ourselves, build their own reverse proxies, but this requires a high level of software and hardware engineering knowledge, as well as a significant investment in physical hardware. 

Users on our Reseller, Shared, Managed Cloud, and Managed VPS services will automatically utilise our load balancers and CDN, taking the strenuous upkeep workload from you so that you can focus on what is most important.