How to Setup Traefik Load Balancer for Docker Containers. In this post, we introduce Traefik Load Balancer, its advantages then show you how to setup Traefik Load Balancer for Docker Containers.
Firstly,Traefik load balancer is a renowned dynamic reverse proxy and load balancer. A cloud native, open source system that divides network traffic among a number of servers or containers. Designed to make it simpler to deploy cloud native apps that are based on microservices. The user interface, scalability, and advanced features of Traefik had recently helped it become more well liked among developers. Let’s learn more about its features and advantages.
What is Traefik Load Balancer and How It Works
Discovering Dynamic Services
Above all, Traefik is designed to be dynamically configured according to the state of the cluster at any given time. Consul, Zookeeper, the Kubernetes API, and Docker labels are just a few of the service discovery tools it uses to find new services, and it then routes traffic accordingly.
Routing
Consequently, Traefik carries out complex routes based on variables like the URL path, HTTP headers, and SSL certificates. Moreover, it supports routing protocols, including PathPrefix, Host, and Headers.
It also assists canary deployments only by sending a small portion of traffic to a test version of a service.
Load balancing
What is more, Traefik evenly distributes incoming traffic among the available containers using a variety of load balancing methods, including round robin, least connections, and IP hash.
Provides session affinity guarantees that a client’s following requests are always forwarded to the same container.
Scalability
The tremendous scalability of Traefik allows it to process thousands of requests per second. It scales horizontally when a cluster’s container count grows.
Then, Traefik automatically detects these changes and modify the routing, once it detects new containers are added to or withdrawn from a cluster.
Management and Monitoring
Moreover, Traefik provides its users with access to a web based dashboard that makes it simple to track and control their traffic. Real time analytics including requests per second, response times, and error rates are shown on the dashboard. Also integrates with a range of monitoring and alerting technologies, including Prometheus and Grafana, etc
Cloud Native Support
Besides, Traefik is cloud native and several cloud service providers, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, allow for its deployment. Traefik easily integrates with other cloud native applications like Istio, Linkerd, and Envoy.
Advantages of Traefik Load Balancer
Simple to Use
One of the prime benefits of Traefik is the easiness to set up and how it operates with a simple configuration syntax and an intuitive web based interface. Supports several languages and frameworks and is created while keeping professionals in mind.
Flexible Configuration
Equally, Traefik easily finds new services and change its route without the need for human intervention due to its dynamic setup. Quite versatile and works well in dynamic settings like cloud native apps.
High Availability
Above all, Traefik is highly available and guarantees traffic is routed due to its advanced features, even if any of the cluster’s nodes fail. By doing so downtime is reduced and the functionality of the apps is maintained.
Scalability
Basically, Traefik is incredibly scalable with support for horizontal scaling as a cluster’s number of containers grows. And, works well with large applications as it handles thousands of requests per second.
Security
Further, Traefik provides security measures including SSL termination, client certificate authentication, and rate limiter. Integrates with additional security tools like Keycloak, OAuth2, and Let’s Encrypt.
Cloud Native Compatibility
Designed to integrate with container orchestration systems. Furthermore, it is set up on several cloud service providers, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
Community Support and Open Source
Even more, Traefik is open source and has a wide and active community of developers and contributors. This implies it is regularly updated and enhanced, with the addition of new features and bug fixes.
Next section explains How to Setup Traefik Load Balancer for Docker Containers.
How to Setup Traefik Load Balancer for Docker Containers
Prerequisites
- A server running the Linux operating system.
- A root user or a user with sudo privileges.
Getting Started
Before starting, you need to update and upgrade all the system packages to the latest version. You update them by running the following command.
apt update -y
apt upgrade -y
After updating all the packages, you proceed to the next step.
Add Docker Repository
First, install all the required dependencies using the following command.
apt install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl software-properties-common
Next, download and import the Docker GPG key with the following command.
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg
Then, add the Docker repository to the APT with the following command.
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
Once the repository is added, you update the repository cache with the following command.
apt update
Install Docker and Docker Compose
Now, you install both Docker and Docker Compose packages by running the following command.
apt install docker-ce docker-compose
After the successful installation, you verify the Docker installation using the following command.
docker version
You should see the Docker version information on the following screen.
To check the Docker active status, run the following command.
systemctl status docker
Once you are finished, you proceed to the next step.
Configure Traefik Load Balancer
Here at first, create a Docker network using the following command.
docker network create web_zone
Now, you verify the network with the following command.
docker network ls
You should see the following screen.
Create a directory for the Traefik project using the following command.
mkdir traefik
Navigate to the project directory and create a traefik.yaml file.
cd traefik
nano traefik.yaml
Add the following configuration.
# Static configuration
entryPoints:
unsecure:
address: :80
secure:
address: :443
certificatesResolvers:
myresolver:
acme:
email: hitjethva@gmail.com
storage: acme.json
httpChallenge:
entryPoint: unsecure
providers:
file:
filename: tls.yaml
watch: true
Save and close the file when you are done. Then, create another file to define the provider information.
nano tls.yaml
Add the following configuration.
http:
routers:
http_router:
rule: "Host(`traefik.cloudinfrastructureservices.co.uk`)"
service: allbackend
https_router:
rule: "Host(`traefik.cloudinfrastructureservices.co.uk`)"
service: allbackend
tls:
certResolver: myresolver
options: tlsoptions
services:
allbackend:
loadBalancer:
servers:
- url: "http://myserver1/"
- url: "http://myserver2/"
tls:
options:
tlsoptions:
minVersion: VersionTLS12
Save the file then create a file to store the Let’s Encrypt certificate.
touch acme.json
Set proper permission on the file.
chmod 600 acme.json
Create a Docker Compose File for Traefik
Here at this step you need to create a docker-compose.yaml file to launch the Traefik container. You create it in the same directory using the following command.
nano docker-compose.yml
Add the following configuration.
version: '3'
services:
traefik:
image: traefik:latest
command: --docker --docker.domain=cloudinfrastructureservices.co.uk
ports:
- 80:80
- 443:443
networks:
- web_zone
volumes:
- /run/docker.sock:/run/docker.sock
- ./traefik.yaml:/traefik.yaml
- ./tls.yaml:/tls.yaml
- ./acme.json:/acme.json
container_name: traefik
restart: always
networks:
web_zone:
external: true
Save and close the file when you are done.
Configure Backend Server
Please create two backend servers using Nginx. First, create a directory to store all configurations.
mkdir ~/traefik/backend
Following that step, please navigate to the directory and create two files to identify both servers.
cd ~/traefik/backend
echo "<h1> First Web Server</h1>" > index-server1.html
echo "<h1> Second Web Server</h1>" > index-server2.html
Then, create a docker-compose.yml file to run Nginx containers.
nano docker-compose.yml
Add the following configuration.
version: '3'
services:
myserver1:
image: nginx
container_name: nginx1
restart: always
volumes:
- ./index-server1.html:/usr/share/nginx/html/index.html
networks:
- web_zone
myserver2:
image: nginx
container_name: nginx2
restart: always
volumes:
- ./index-server2.html:/usr/share/nginx/html/index.html
networks:
- web_zone
networks:
web_zone:
external: true
Save and close the file when you are finished.
Launch the backend Servers
At this point, all the configurations are ready. Now create Nginx containers using the following command.
cd ~/traefik/backend
docker compose up -d
This downloads the Nginx Docker images from the Docker repository and create two containers as shown below.
Now verify the status of both Nginx containers using the following command.
docker-compose ps
If everything is fine, you should see the following screen.
Launch Traefik Container
Navigate to the Traefik directory and start the Traefik container using the following command.
cd ~/traefik
docker compose up -d
You should see the following screen.
Verify the active status of the Traefik container using the following command.
docker-compose ps
You should see the following screen.
Verify Traefik Load Balancing
At this point, Traefik is installed and configured to load balancing both Nginx web servers. Now, it’s time to test it.
Open your web browser and type the URL https://traefik.cloudinfrastructureservices.co.uk. You should see your first Nginx page on the following screen.
Refresh the page. You should see the second Nginx page on the following screen.
Thank you for reading How to Setup Traefik Load Balancer for Docker Containers. We shall conclude the article now.
How to Setup Traefik Load Balancer for Docker Containers Conclusion
Finally, Traefik is created with the user’s needs in mind with an easy configuration file format and a web based dashboard. It also enables users to conveniently monitor and is known as a powerful and flexible tool for managing traffic in cloud native environments making it a popular choice for many organizations.
