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HAProxy: mastering load balancing and high availability
Your applications need available, monitored services. With HAProxy, structure configuration and operational analysis to prepare for production operations. Develop reference points for supporting changes and addressing areas requiring attention.
- Duration
- 3 days 21 hours
- Code
- ITASR-001-FR Code
Presentation
HAProxy is a powerful, versatile open-source tool that has become a standard for load balancing and high availability. It intelligently distributes traffic between servers, keeping applications available even if a server fails. Reverse proxy, SSL/TLS termination and attack protection capabilities also make it valuable for improving infrastructure security and resilience.
Our 3-day HAProxy course explores this essential software in depth. Whether you are a system administrator, network engineer, DevOps professional or virtualisation enthusiast, you will learn HAProxy comprehensively. From load balancing fundamentals to advanced security and monitoring techniques, the program covers the essentials.
You will alternate between theory and practice, with hands-on exercises and multiple-choice assessments to validate learning. Expert trainers support you throughout in an interactive, personalised environment.
Objectives
By completing this HAProxy Community course, you will be able to:
- master load balancing, high availability and fault tolerance fundamentals;
- configure HAProxy for HTTP, TCP and HTTPS use cases, including advanced features;
- implement robust measures to protect applications against attacks;
- optimise application performance with HAProxy capabilities;
- monitor HAProxy infrastructure to ensure availability and performance;
- test application resilience through vulnerability, load and security testing.
Program
Module 1: mastering high availability fundamentals
- Key concepts: load balancing and fault tolerance.
- Load distribution methods: round-robin, least connections, source IP and more.
- Implementing a basic HAProxy architecture.
- Advanced load balancing algorithms, such as consistent hashing.
Practical work
- Set up an HAProxy load balancer for a simple web application.
- Configure failover between two web servers.
Module 2: configuring HAProxy for high-performance applications
- Installing and configuring HAProxy.
- Preparing HAProxy and Apache servers.
- HAProxy architecture: frontends, backends and HTTP/TCP protocol modes.
- Configuring high availability, rewriting and redirects.
- Access Control Lists (ACLs) for precise access control.
Practical work
- Configure HAProxy as a reverse proxy with cache management.
- Implement rewrite rules to optimise URLs.
Module 3: securing HTTPS connections with HAProxy
- Managing HTTPS connections with HAProxy.
- TCP and HTTP modes for HTTPS traffic.
- Best practices for TLS/SSL termination.
- SSL certificates, TLS and ciphers.
Practical work
- Configure SSL termination with a Let's Encrypt certificate.
- Implement measures to strengthen SSL/TLS security.
Module 4: protecting applications against attacks
- Preventing DoS and DDoS attacks.
- Mitigating Slowloris attacks.
- Request limiting and traffic management.
- Advanced protection techniques: rate limiting and tarpitting.
Practical work
- Configure HAProxy to limit requests per IP address.
- Implement security rules to block common attacks.
Module 5: strengthening security with advanced modules
- Using anti-bot modules.
- Silently terminating suspicious requests.
- Scraping detection and data protection.
- Integration with intrusion detection systems (IDS).
Practical work
- Configure an anti-bot module to protect a login form.
- Implement a scraping detection system.
Module 6: monitoring and testing HAProxy infrastructure
- Implementing HAProxy monitoring.
- Detecting issues and analysing frontend, backend and system statistics.
- Performing vulnerability, load, Slowloris, scraping and TLS/SSL tests.
- Integration with monitoring tools such as Prometheus and Grafana.
Practical work
- Configure an HAProxy monitoring dashboard.
- Perform load tests to assess HAProxy performance.
Audience
This course is intended for:
- system administrators seeking to master HAProxy for application high availability, load balancing and security;
- IT technicians developing skills to diagnose HAProxy issues and implement optimisation and security solutions;
- network engineers integrating HAProxy into network architectures to optimise traffic, improve availability and strengthen security;
- DevOps engineers seeking to automate HAProxy deployment and configuration and integrate it into CI/CD pipelines;
- cloud engineers incorporating HAProxy into cloud architectures for availability, scalability and security;
- developers learning to configure HAProxy for their applications, optimise performance and protect against attacks;
- anyone interested in virtualisation wishing to understand how HAProxy can improve application performance and security in virtualised environments.
Prerequisites
This course requires the following prerequisites:
- Linux proficiency: solid experience with Linux, ideally Debian or CentOS, is essential. You should be comfortable navigating file systems, running commands, managing processes, administering users, permissions and services, and configuring networking.
- Networking knowledge: a thorough understanding of TCP/IP fundamentals, including IP addresses, subnets, ports, TCP and UDP.
- Web server administration: familiarity with servers such as Apache or Nginx is an advantage, as HAProxy is often used alongside them.
- Technical English: basic understanding is useful because HAProxy documentation is primarily in English.
Teaching and assessment methods
- Initial skills assessment
- Training materials provided to participants
- Continuous assessment throughout the course
- End-of-course feedback questionnaire
- Combination of theory and practical application
- Attendance records
- Post-course follow-up evaluation
- Quiz / multiple-choice questions
- Practical exercises
Course highlights
- Expert trainers: our trainers combine solid practical HAProxy experience with proven teaching skills.
- Comprehensive, up-to-date HAProxy training: master HAProxy from fundamentals to advanced capabilities. The program is regularly updated to incorporate recent versions and best practices.
- Practical exercises and multiple-choice assessments: progressive exercises throughout allow you to apply knowledge, analyse concrete cases and measure progress.
- Interactive, personalised learning: discussion and collaborative learning are supported by individual trainer follow-up to answer questions and guide your progress.
Dates and sessions
Choose the date and delivery format that suit you.
No upcoming sessions are currently available.