Ranger Reverse Proxy

How It Works

The proxy reads its configuration from a YAML file describing:

• Listening port
• Worker count
• Upstream servers
• Routing rules
• Request headers

The master process accepts incoming HTTP requests and distributes them to worker processes.

Each worker:

1. Matches the incoming request against configured routing rules.
2. Selects an upstream service using round-robin scheduling.
3. Forwards the request to the selected backend.
4. Receives the upstream response.
5. Returns the response to the client through the master process.

This architecture separates connection management from request processing while allowing multiple worker processes to handle traffic concurrently.

Technical Highlights

• Node.js Cluster API
• HTTP request forwarding
• Round-robin load balancing
• YAML configuration parser
• Schema validation with Zod
• Type-safe configuration
• Worker IPC messaging
• Configurable proxy headers
• Modular architecture
• Native Node.js networking

Challenges

Developing the proxy required solving several backend engineering problems, including:

• Coordinating communication between the master process and worker processes.
• Designing a flexible configuration system using YAML.
• Implementing reliable path-based routing.
• Forwarding requests while preserving configurable headers.
• Distributing traffic across upstream servers using round-robin scheduling.

Future Improvements

Planned enhancements include:

• HTTPS termination
• Health checks for upstream servers
• Automatic failover
• Request logging
• Metrics and monitoring
• Rate limiting
• Sticky sessions
• Reverse proxy caching
• WebSocket support
• Configuration hot reload

Key Takeaway

Ranger Reverse Proxy demonstrates the core principles behind modern reverse proxy servers by combining configurable routing, worker clustering, and load balancing into a lightweight and extensible backend service. The project strengthened my understanding of networking, concurrent server design, and scalable request forwarding using Node.js.