Round-robin (default) in Nginx - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Configure Nginx Load Balancer with Round-robin

📖 Scenario: You are setting up a simple load balancer using Nginx to distribute web traffic evenly across multiple backend servers. This helps your website handle more visitors smoothly.

🎯 Goal: Build an Nginx configuration that uses the default round-robin method to balance requests between two backend servers.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an upstream block named backend with two servers: 192.168.1.10 and 192.168.1.11

Add a server block that listens on port 80

Configure the server block to proxy requests to the backend upstream

Use the default round-robin load balancing method

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Load balancing is used in real websites and apps to share user traffic across multiple servers, improving speed and reliability.

💼 Career

Understanding Nginx load balancing is important for DevOps roles managing web infrastructure and ensuring high availability.

1

Create the upstream block

Write an upstream block named backend with two servers: 192.168.1.10 and 192.168.1.11.

Nginx

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the upstream directive followed by the name backend. Inside curly braces, list each server with the server keyword and its IP address.

2

Add the server block listening on port 80

Add a server block that listens on port 80.

Nginx

upstream backend {
    server 192.168.1.10;
    server 192.168.1.11;
}

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the server directive with curly braces. Inside, add listen 80; to accept HTTP traffic on port 80.

3

Configure proxy to upstream backend

Inside the server block, add a location / block that proxies requests to the backend upstream using proxy_pass.

Nginx

upstream backend {
    server 192.168.1.10;
    server 192.168.1.11;
}

server {
    listen 80;
    # Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Inside the server block, add location / {}. Inside that, use proxy_pass http://backend; to forward requests to the upstream.

4

Test the configuration output

Print the entire Nginx configuration to verify it is correct.

Nginx

upstream backend {
    server 192.168.1.10;
    server 192.168.1.11;
}

server {
    listen 80;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://backend;
    }
}

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Review the full configuration to ensure it matches the expected format.