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Questions and Answers
What is one primary function of a reverse proxy?
What is one primary function of a reverse proxy?
What advantage does a reverse proxy offer concerning security?
What advantage does a reverse proxy offer concerning security?
Which of the following is NOT a benefit of using a reverse proxy?
Which of the following is NOT a benefit of using a reverse proxy?
What challenge does introducing a reverse proxy add to a web infrastructure?
What challenge does introducing a reverse proxy add to a web infrastructure?
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Which operation can a reverse proxy perform to optimize server responses?
Which operation can a reverse proxy perform to optimize server responses?
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How can reverse proxies improve the performance of web applications?
How can reverse proxies improve the performance of web applications?
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What can a reverse proxy do regarding client connections?
What can a reverse proxy do regarding client connections?
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What is one potential drawback of utilizing a reverse proxy server?
What is one potential drawback of utilizing a reverse proxy server?
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Study Notes
Reverse Proxy
- A reverse proxy acts as an intermediary between client requests (e.g., from the internet) and internal servers.
- It centralizes internal services and provides a unified interface to the public.
- Requests from clients are forwarded to the appropriate server that can handle the request.
- The response is then returned to the client by the reverse proxy.
Benefits of Reverse Proxies
- Increased Security: Hides backend servers, blacklists IPs, and limits connections per client.
- Increased Scalability and Flexibility: Clients only see the reverse proxy's IP address, allowing for easier scaling and configuration changes to backend servers.
- SSL Termination: Decrypts incoming requests and encrypts server responses, removing the need for backend servers to handle potentially expensive encryption/decryption operations.
- Compression: Compresses server responses, reducing bandwidth usage.
- Caching: Returns cached responses for faster future requests.
- Static Content Serving: Serves static content like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, and videos directly from the reverse proxy.
Load Balancer vs. Reverse Proxy
- Load Balancers: Useful when serving multiple servers. Routes traffic to servers based on load.
- Reverse Proxies: Can be used with even one server, offering benefits like SSL offloading and caching, and can often be integrated with load balancers.
- Solutions (e.g., NGINX, HAProxy): Can handle both layer 7 reverse proxying and load balancing.
Disadvantages of Reverse Proxies
- Increased Complexity: Introducing a reverse proxy increases overall system complexity.
- Single Point of Failure: Reverse proxies create a single point of failure; multiple proxies would mitigate this. (e.g., a failover configuration)
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Description
This quiz explores the fundamental concepts of reverse proxies, their functions, and the benefits they provide to internal server management. Understand how reverse proxies enhance security, scalability, and efficiency in handling client requests. Get ready to test your knowledge on this vital component of web architecture.
