selfhosting-blogposts/nginx_loadb/index.md

# NGINX Load Balancing 

First off you will need a debian10 server to run nginx as a load balancer, and 2 other http servers.

## **Initial Setup**

First we're go install nginx:
    
    
    apt update -y && apt upgrade -y
    apt install nginx -y
    	
    

Then you will need 2 http servers (mine are 192.168.0.150:80 and 192.168.0.151:80):

![](1.png)

Then make the configuration to load balance the 2 servers:
    
    
    nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/loadb.conf
    
    
    
    
    upstream backend {
            server 192.168.0.150:80 weight=1;
            server 192.168.0.151:80 weight=2;
    
    }
    server {
            listen 80;
            listen [::]:80;
            location / {
                    proxy_pass http://backend;
            }
    }
    

Hit CTRL+S to save and CTRL+X to exit nano.

## **Launching the config**

Now remove the default config and launch reload nginx:
    
    
    
    rm /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
    rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
    
    ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/loadb.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/loadb.conf
    nginx -s reload
    
    

![](2.png)

And test if it load balances well. It should give us the output of the .151 server because it has the highest weight: 

![](3.png)

As you can see, nginx determines the number of allowed requests to each load balanced website with the weight parameter, for instance, our .151 server has a weight of 2, so nginx will allow us 2 requests before switching back to the .150 server. 

This is also possible with other ports like database servers:
    
    
    upstream sqlbackend {
            server 192.168.0.150:3386 weight=1;
            server 192.168.0.151:3386 weight=2;
    
    }
    server {
            listen 3386;
            listen [::]:3386;
            location / {
                    proxy_pass sqlbackend;
            }
    }
    	
    

It is also possible to do with UDP:
    
    
    stream {
    upstream ntp {
            server 192.168.0.150:123 weight=2;
            server 192.168.0.151:123 weight=3;
    
    }
    server {
            listen 123 udp;
            listen [::]:123 udp;
            location / {
                    proxy_pass ntp;
            }
    }
    }
    

Here you can see how flexible nginx truly is, it can handle load balancing of multiple types of services, apply weights parameters over tcp/udp services.