HAProxy can run in two different modes: TCP or HTTP. When operating in TCP mode, we say that it acts as a layer 4 proxy. In HTTP mode, we say that it acts as a layer 7 proxy. To understand the difference, you must first learn about the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model, which helps IT pros conceptualize and explain where a piece of software fits in the context of a computer network.
VMware chose HAProxy as the default load balancer for Tanzu Kubernetes clusters, which helped streamline load balancing in their Kubernetes platform. VMware has delivered vSphere 7 with Tanzu, its endeavor to embed an enterprise-grade version of Kubernetes inside vSphere, the industry-leading compute virtualization platform.
HAProxy 2.3 adds exciting features such as forwarding, prioritizing,and translating of messages sent over the Syslog Protocol on both UDP and TCP, Stats Contexts, SSL/TLS enhancements, an improved cache, and changes in the connection layer that lay the foundation for support for HTTP/3 / QUIC. This release was truly a community effort and could not have been made possible without all of the hard work from everyone involved in active discussions on the mailing list and the HAProxy project GitHub.
The age of rendering most of a web page’s contents on the server and then delivering it as a colossal HTML file is fading into the past. Modern web frameworks like Angular, React, and Vue push towards creating components instead—individual elements on the page that fetch their data in the background and poll for asynchronous updates—which can be reused across your site.
HAProxy provides an easy and straightforward way to add HTTPS to your website. As a load balancer positioned in front of your web servers, it can handle all of the encryption and decryption duties, offloading those tasks from your upstream servers. That’s good because in today’s age of privacy awareness, the consensus is that every website must implement HTTPS, regardless of whether sensitive or private information is being exchanged.
Use the HAProxy load balancer to redirect users from HTTP to HTTPS automatically. For decades, our lives have become increasingly dependent on sending and receiving data from across the Internet. Now, with more people working, studying, and hanging with friends remotely, that trend is showing an uptick. Yet, adversaries seem to be grasping at that communication from every direction.
Set up custom error pages in HAProxy to ensure consistent, branded messaging that supports any backend web stack. The memory is probably still fresh: You’re shopping online at your favorite website, looking for something specific, you’ve got it narrowed down to two or maybe three products, you make the final decision, click to checkout and then— Internal Server Error. A cryptic error has replaced the page you were expecting. More than surprised, you feel knocked off balance.
The OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set team has reported a Denial of Service vulnerability in ModSecurity version 3.x that allows an attacker to send a crafted payload that exploits a flaw in how regular expressions are matched within the software. A CVE (CVE-2020-15598) was assigned to this vulnerability and it has been rated with a CVSSv3 score of 7.5 (high).
Detect and stop fake web crawlers using HAProxy Enterprise’s Verify Crawler add-on. How your website ranks on Google can have a substantial impact on the number of visitors you receive, which can ultimately make or break the success of your online business. To keep search results fresh, Google and other search engines deploy programs called web crawlers that scan and index the Internet at a regular interval, registering new and updated content.
