Reverse proxy
I am currently evaluating some reverse proxy and load balancing servers. I have installed and tested lighttpd with mod_cache and mod_proxy_core and Litespeed. I have not yet tested Squid. Overall, I must admit Litespeed is a very nice product.
Litespeed v4 will have caching support. The current version has only reverse proxy without caching. The configuration is easy in the web interface. You only have to understand their concept which is similar to that of Apache: Server -> Listener (IP and Port pair) -> Virtual Host. The big advantage is that you can set usage limits at every level: number of simultaneous connections per client IP, per vhost, bandwidth per client IP, per vhost, per server… The request filter and context are very nice. You can ban/filter by URI, POST content, user agent… It uses the mod_security syntax. Litespeed is commercial however. I will have to evaluate the licensing costs to see if it is worth the hassle.
I had some problems with mod_cache and mod_proxy_cache working properly. I will have to check it again. mod_cache is a third party module and not maintained by the main lighttpd developer. This is a big downside.
I have read Squid documentation but did not find any filtering capability. If there were a mod_security port, that would be great. I will have to install and evaluate Squid anyway.
So far, I am impressed with Litespeed and can’t wait to see version 4.
Tags: reverse proxy