Load Balancing with HAProxy and Health Checks

Distribute incoming traffic across multiple backend servers using HAProxy, a high-performance TCP/HTTP load balancer. This recipe covers round-robin distribution, active health checks, sticky sessions, and SSL termination for production-grade resilience.

When to Use This

• You run multiple application instances and need to distribute traffic evenly
• Services must be automatically removed from rotation when unhealthy
• SSL termination should happen at the edge, not on each application server

Solution

1. Basic HAProxy Configuration

# haproxy.cfg
global
    log stdout local0
    maxconn 4096

defaults
    mode http
    timeout connect 5s
    timeout client 30s
    timeout server 30s
    option httpchk GET /health

frontend web_frontend
    bind *:80
    default_backend app_servers

backend app_servers
    balance roundrobin
    server web1 10.0.1.10:3000 check
    server web2 10.0.1.11:3000 check
    server web3 10.0.1.12:3000 check

2. Active Health Checks

backend app_servers
    balance roundrobin
    option httpchk GET /health

    # Mark as down after 2 failed checks; up after 3 successes
    default-server inter 5s fall 2 rise 3

    server web1 10.0.1.10:3000 check
    server web2 10.0.1.11:3000 check
    server web3 10.0.1.12:3000 check

3. Sticky Sessions with Cookies

backend app_servers
    balance roundrobin
    cookie SERVERID insert indirect nocache

    server web1 10.0.1.10:3000 check cookie web1
    server web2 10.0.1.11:3000 check cookie web2
    server web3 10.0.1.12:3000 check cookie web3

4. SSL Termination

frontend web_frontend
    bind *:443 ssl crt /etc/ssl/certs/site.pem
    http-request redirect scheme https unless { ssl_fc }
    default_backend app_servers

5. Stats Dashboard

listen stats
    bind *:8404
    stats enable
    stats uri /stats
    stats refresh 10s

How It Works

• Frontend listens on a port and receives client connections
• Backend defines the pool of servers and balancing algorithm
• Health checks send periodic requests; failing servers are removed
• Cookie insertion pins a user to a specific backend for session affinity

Variation: Weighted Load Balancing

backend app_servers
    balance roundrobin
    server web1 10.0.1.10:3000 check weight 3
    server web2 10.0.1.11:3000 check weight 2
    server web3 10.0.1.12:3000 check weight 1

Production Considerations

• Run HAProxy in active-passive with keepalived for failover
• Use leastconn for long-lived WebSocket connections
• Enable compression with compression algo gzip

Common Mistakes

• Forgetting to expose a /health endpoint in applications
• Using source IP affinity behind NAT where all clients share one IP
• Not monitoring the stats page for backend degradation

FAQ

Q: How is this different from Nginx? A: HAProxy specializes in layer 4/7 load balancing with superior health check granularity. Nginx is a general-purpose web server that also proxies.

Q: Can I use HAProxy with Docker? A: Yes. Use the official haproxy image and mount your haproxy.cfg as a volume.