Complete HAProxy 3.3.0 toolkit for load balancing, reverse proxying, SSL/TLS termination, and traffic management. Use when configuring HTTP/TCP load balancers, implementing high availability, managing SSL certificates, setting up health checks, configuring ACLs and content switching, or deploying HAProxy as a production-grade reverse proxy and load balancer.
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Complete HAProxy 3.3.0 toolkit for load balancing, reverse proxying, SSL/TLS termination, and traffic management. Use when configuring HTTP/TCP load balancers, implementing high availability, managing SSL certificates, setting up health checks, configuring ACLs and content switching, or deploying HAProxy as a production-grade reverse proxy and load balancer.
HAProxy is a high-performance, event-driven, non-blocking TCP/HTTP load balancer and reverse proxy. Written in C, it operates as a single process with multiple threads (one per CPU core by default), isolating itself into a chroot jail after startup. It supports HTTP/1.x, HTTP/2, HTTP/3 (QUIC), raw TCP, UDP, and UNIX sockets on both frontend and backend sides.
Key capabilities include:
Load balancing with 10+ algorithms: round-robin, leastconn, source, URI, hdr, first, consistent hashing, random, rdp-cookie, and url_param
SSL/TLS termination with SNI-based multi-hosting (50,000+ domains supported), OCSP stapling, TLS tickets, dynamic record sizing, and certificate rotation at runtime
Health checking via TCP connect, HTTP request, SMTP hello, SSL hello, LDAP, SQL, Redis, send/expect scripts, and external checks
Content switching using ACLs that match on any element of requests/responses: source IP, headers, cookies, URLs, payload offsets
Stickiness/persistence via cookie insertion/rewriting, source IP hashing, and stick-tables replicated across HAProxy nodes
PROXY protocol v1 and v2 support for preserving client addresses through multiple proxy layers
Runtime management via Unix socket CLI for live configuration changes, server state management, SSL certificate updates, and statistics
Lua scripting (Lua 5.3) for custom sample fetches, converters, actions, services, and tasks
QUIC/HTTP3 with congestion control tuning, dedicated per-connection sockets, and retry protection
DNS resolution with built-in resolver supporting round-robin DNS, SRV records, and runtime address updates
When to Use
Configuring HAProxy as an HTTP or TCP reverse proxy in front of application servers
Setting up load balancing across multiple backend servers with health checks
Implementing SSL/TLS termination with SNI-based multi-hosting
Building high-availability architectures with keepalived/VRRP integration
Performing content-based routing using ACLs and sample fetching
Preserving client IP addresses through proxy chains with PROXY protocol
Managing HAProxy at runtime via the CLI socket (server weight changes, SSL updates)
Writing Lua scripts for custom HAProxy behavior
Configuring stick-tables for rate limiting, DDoS protection, or session persistence
Setting up QUIC/HTTP3 listeners with proper tuning
Implementing multi-process or master-worker deployment modes
Frontends accept incoming connections on listening sockets and apply frontend-specific processing rules before passing traffic to backends. They represent the client-facing side of proxying.
Backends define server farms with load balancing algorithms, health checks, and backend-specific processing rules. They represent the server-facing side.
Listen sections combine frontend and backend into a single proxy definition, useful for simple TCP passthrough or straightforward HTTP proxying.
Proxies are the fundamental configuration entities. HAProxy supports configurations with 300,000+ distinct proxies in a single process. Each connection is served by exactly one thread, so you need at least as many connections as threads to utilize all processing capacity.
ACLs (Access Control Lists) match conditions on sampled data extracted from connections, requests, or responses. They enable content-based routing, traffic filtering, and conditional actions. ACLs use fetch functions to extract values and matching operators to compare them against patterns.
Sample fetching extracts data from any point in the connection lifecycle. Fetches produce samples that can be converted, compared, stored in variables, logged, or used as action conditions. Samples have types (boolean, integer, string, IP address) and scopes (proc, sess, txn, req, res, check).
Configuration Structure
HAProxy configuration files use a simple text format with sections:
global — process-wide settings (maxconn, threads, SSL defaults, logging, chroot)
defaults — default values inherited by all subsequent proxy sections
frontend — client-facing proxy definitions with bind addresses and routing rules
backend — server farm definitions with load balancing algorithms and health checks
peers — stick-table replication between HAProxy nodes
resolvers — DNS resolver configuration for runtime address resolution
cache — HTTP response cache configuration
Configuration supports environment variables within double quotes, conditional blocks (.if/.elif/.else/.endif), and time/size formats with unit suffixes (ms, s, m, h, d for time; k, m, g for size).
Usage Examples
Basic HTTP reverse proxy:
global
daemon
maxconn 4096
log 127.0.0.1 local0
defaults
mode http
timeout connect 5s
timeout client 30s
timeout server 30s
frontend http-in
bind *:80
default_backend web-servers
backend web-servers
balance roundrobin
server web1 192.168.1.10:8080 check
server web2 192.168.1.11:8080 check
listen tcp-app
bind *:2222 accept-proxy
mode tcp
server srv1 10.0.0.1:22 send-proxy-v2 check
server srv2 10.0.0.2:22 send-proxy-v2 check
Rate limiting with stick-tables:
frontend http-in
bind *:80
stick-table type ip size 100k expire 30s store http_req_rate(10s)
http-request track-sc0 src
http-request deny if { sc_http_req_rate(0) gt 100 }
default_backend web-servers
Advanced Topics
Configuration Reference: Complete reference for all configuration keywords in global, defaults, frontend, backend, listen, peers, resolvers, and cache sections → Configuration Reference
ACLs and Sample Fetching: Access control lists, sample fetch functions, converters, conditions, and content switching patterns → ACLs and Sample Fetching
Management and Runtime CLI: Starting, stopping, reloading, Unix socket commands, statistics, server state management, and seamless upgrades → Management and Runtime CLI
