Is there any way to configure nginx (or other quick reverse proxy) dynamically?

Question

Suppose we have several identical nodes which are the application servers of some n-tier service. And suppose we use Apache ZooKeeper to keep all the config\'s of our distribute

Answer 1

Please try Nginx-Clojure. We can use a clojure/java/groovy rewrite handler to access zookeeper then update some nginx variables to dynamically change proxy target. e.g.

In nginx.conf

set $mytarget "";

location / {
   rewrite_handler_type java;
   ## We will change $mytarget in MyRewriteHandler
   rewrite_handler_name my.MyRewriteHandler;
   proxy_pass $mytarget;
}

In MyRewriteHandler.java

public static class MyRewriteHandler implements NginxJavaRingHandler {

        @Override
        public Object[] invoke(Map request) {
           //access zookeeper
           ...............
           //change nginx variable mytarget
           ((NginxJavaRequest)request).setVaraible("mytarget", "http://some-host-or-url");
        }