Reverse proxy deep dive mitendra mahto 8 min read · Jun 25, 2025 -- Listen Share
This post was originally published on my personal blog.
A Deep Dive into Reverse Proxy
A reverse proxy is a critical piece of software commonly found in various setups within a distributed system. You may have encountered it as a proxy enabling service mesh, a load balancer distributing the load among different database instances, or an edge proxy hiding the complexity behind a site.
Several excellent reverse proxies exist, such as HAProxy, Nginx, Envoy, Caddy, Traefik, Zuul, Apache Traffic Server, etc. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, often used in specific contexts. For service mesh, Envoy/Linkerd are common choices, while for edge proxy, Nginx/HAProxy are preferred. For caching proxy, ATS is a great option, and HAProxy shines in load balancing among different database instances.
Unveiling the Functions and Intricacies of Reverse Proxies
At its core, the reverse proxy facilitates communication between clients and origin hosts. The high-level workflow involves:
Clients connecting to the reverse proxy Client sending requests (HTTP/TCP/UDP/SSH, etc.) The proxy forwarding the request to one of the origin hosts Proxy awaiting the response from the origin Proxy forwarding the response to the client Proxy/client/origin closing the connections.
Note: For simplicity, we’ll focus on Layer 7 (HTTP) reverse proxy.
Breaking down the workflow reveals several essential functionalities:
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