Improving the reverse proxy architecture
There are a few more additional steps that you may be interested in if you want to perfect your reverse proxy architecture. Three main issues are discussed here: the issue of IP addresses and how to ensure that the backend server retrieves the correct one, how to handle HTTPS requests with such a setup, and finally, a quick word about server control panels (cPanel, Plesk, and others).
Forwarding the correct IP address
Nowadays, a good portion of websites make use of the visitor's IP address for all kinds of reasons:
- Storing the IP address of a visitor posting a comment on a blog or a discussion forum
- Geo-targeted advertising or other services
- Limiting services to specific IP address ranges
Therefore, it is important for those websites to ensure that the web server correctly receives the IP address of the visitor.
As explained before, since Apache—or more generally, the backend server—uses the IP address of the socket it communicates with, the IP that will...
