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HAProxy Edge Load Balancer

HAProxy is the reference open-source load balancer and reverse proxy, available in the NetActuate Marketplace as a one-click appliance you can deploy into any PoP. It provides layer 4 (TCP) and layer 7 (HTTP) load balancing, health checking, TLS termination, and content-aware routing in a single, efficient event-driven process. This appliance is free and open source, and is grouped under the Networking & Security category.

What It Does​

HAProxy sits in front of a pool of backend servers and distributes traffic across them while checking their health, so unhealthy backends are removed automatically. Common uses include:

  • Distributing web and API traffic across application servers
  • High-availability TCP load balancing for databases, queues, and custom protocols
  • TLS termination and edge reverse proxy in front of microservices
  • Blue/green and canary rollouts using content switching and weighted backends

Running it in a NetActuate PoP near your users shortens the TLS handshake and round-trip path, and routes around unhealthy origins while keeping the client connection local and low-latency.

Vendor and Project​

HAProxy is an open-source project. It is offered here under the Open Source partner listing with best-effort community support.

NetActuate supports the underlying infrastructure. Application-level support follows the listing's SLA class (open-source, best effort).

Sizing​

vCPURAMDisk
Minimum11 GB10 GB
Recommended44 GB20 GB

No VPU (hardware acceleration) is required for this appliance. Choose your size at deploy based on connection volume and whether you terminate TLS.

Configuration Fields​

When you deploy, you provide these fields. They are written into the appliance at first boot.

FieldRequiredDefaultNotes
Backend ServersYesnoneComma-separated origin backends as host:port (for example 10.0.0.10:8080,10.0.0.11:8080) that HAProxy load-balances
Frontend PortNo80The port HAProxy listens on for incoming traffic
Stats UserNoadminUsername for the HAProxy statistics page
Stats PasswordNogeneratedPassword for the statistics page. Left blank, one is generated and stored write-only in your secret list
Stats PortNo8404Port for the built-in statistics dashboard

Using the Appliance​

After the build completes:

  1. Connect over SSH as the ubuntu user with the password or SSH key you set at deploy.
  2. HAProxy listens on the frontend port you chose (default 80) and balances across the backend servers you supplied.
  3. Open the live statistics dashboard at http://YOUR_VM_IP:8404/stats and sign in with your stats user and password to see backend health and traffic.
  4. To change the configuration, edit /etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg on the server and run systemctl reload haproxy to apply changes with zero dropped connections.

FAQ​

Is there a software license fee? No. HAProxy is open source and free to run. You pay only for the NetActuate infrastructure and bandwidth.

Where is the stats dashboard? On port 8404 at path /stats by default. You can change the port with the Stats Port field at deploy.

How do I add or remove backends after deployment? Edit the backend section of /etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg and run systemctl reload haproxy. The reload is graceful and does not drop existing connections.

Can I terminate TLS on the appliance? Yes. HAProxy supports TLS/SSL termination, SNI routing, and re-encryption to backends. Add your certificate and a bind line with ssl crt to the frontend in the config.

Version and Changelog​

VersionStatusReleased
1.0.0Current (default)2026-07-09

Deploy​

Need Help?​

Contact support@netactuate.com or open a support ticket from the portal.