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Getting started with HAProxy: Install from source code

2018-05-09 · haproxy, networking, linux

Intro

In this post, I will demonstrate how we can install HAProxy from source code. According to Wikipedia, HAProxy has been written and maintained by Willy Tarreau since 2000. HAProxy is free and open source software (FOSS) that provides a high-availability load balancer and proxy server for TCP and HTTP applications, spreading requests across multiple servers. It is written in C, which is where its reputation for being fast and efficient comes from.

If you are curious, this HAProxy Page offers more details about its features.

Installation

In this guide, we will install the latest stable version of the 1.8 branch (as of May 9, 2018). The HAProxy package available for RHEL is 1.5.18, and 1.8.8 on Debian/Ubuntu. Before taking the next step, make sure you have gcc, pcre-static, and pcre-devel installed:

# CentOS RHEL:
sudo yum -y install make gcc perl pcre-devel zlib-devel

# Debian/Ubuntu:
sudo apt install make gcc perl pcre-devel zlib-devel

Enable IP forwarding and binding to non-local IP addresses:

# echo "net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1" >> /etc/sysctl.conf
# echo "net.ipv4.ip_nonlocal_bind = 1" >> /etc/sysctl.conf
# sysctl -p
net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1
net.ipv4.ip_nonlocal_bind = 1

Download the source code:

wget https://www.haproxy.org/download/1.8/src/haproxy-1.8.8.tar.gz

Extract the file and change directory:

tar xvzf haproxy-1.8.8.tar.gz && cd haproxy-1.8.8

Compile the program:

make TARGET=linux2628 USE_PCRE=1 USE_OPENSSL=1 USE_ZLIB=1

This is the list of TARGETs:

You can also compile the program with following options: USE_PCRE=1 to use libpcre, in whatever form is available on your system (shared or static). USE_ZLIB=1 to use the zlib compression library. USE_OPENSSL=1 to add native support for SSL using the GNU makefile.

Install HAProxy:

sudo make install

With that, the chosen HAProxy version should now be installed. Next, we need to set up HAProxy.

Setup:

Adding HAProxy user:

id -u haproxy &> /dev/null || useradd -s /usr/sbin/nologin -r haproxy

Copy HAProxy binary located in the extracted HAProxy directory to /usr/sbin/:

cp haproxy /usr/sbin/

Create the manual page:

wget -qO - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/horms/haproxy/master/doc/configuration.txt | gzip -c > /usr/share/doc/haproxy/configuration.txt.gz

Create Systemd service script to manage HAProxy, use the following at your discretion:

sudo wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/tmidi/1699a358533ae876513e2887fec6fbe2/raw/6c07ce39adc56c731d2bbeb88b90d8bbc636f3ea/haproxy.service -O /lib/systemd/system/haproxy.service

or create /lib/systemd/system/haproxy.service with the following content:

[Unit]
Description=HAProxy Load Balancer
Documentation=man:haproxy(1)
Documentation=file:/usr/share/doc/haproxy/configuration.txt.gz
# allows us to do millisecond level restarts without triggering alert in Systemd
StartLimitInterval=0
StartLimitBurst=0
After=network.target syslog.service
Wants=syslog.service

[Service]
Environment="CONFIG=/etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg" "PIDFILE=/run/haproxy.pid"
# EXTRAOPTS and RELOADOPS come from this default file
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/default/haproxy
ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/haproxy -f $CONFIG -c -q
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/haproxy -W -f $CONFIG -p $PIDFILE $EXTRAOPTS
ExecReload=/usr/sbin/haproxy -f $CONFIG -c -q $EXTRAOPTS $RELOADOPTS
ExecReload=/bin/kill -USR2 $MAINPID
KillMode=mixed
Restart=always
Type=forking

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start haproxy.service:

systemctl enable haproxy.service
systemctl start haproxy.service

Conclusion

This concludes the HAProxy installation steps. This guide, however, covers only the installation — in a future post I will demonstrate how to configure HAProxy to load balance three backend web servers using sticky sessions and SSL pass-through.

If you find this guide helpful, please share it with your friends and colleagues. I am on X and LinkedIn — let’s connect, or let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

#haproxy#networking#linux