Three CentOS 7 virtual machines are used to build a basic Nginx reverse proxy load balancing cluster:

• 192.168.2.76: Nginx load balancer
• 192.168.2.82: Web server (web01)
• 192.168.2.78: Web server (web02)

Install Nginx on All Nodes

Install required dependencies:

yum -y install openssl openssl-devel pcre pcre-devel gcc wget

Create the installation directory and download Nginx:

mkdir /app
cd /app
wget -q http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.6.3.tar.gz
useradd -s /sbin/nologin -M nginx
id nginx
tar xf nginx-1.6.3.tar.gz
cd nginx-1.6.3
./configure --user=nginx --group=nginx --prefix=/app/nginx --with-http_stub_status_module --with-http_ssl_module
make && make install

Configure Backand Web Servers (web01 and web02)

Edit /app/nginx/conf/nginx.conf:

worker_processes 1;
events {
    worker_connections 1024;
}
http {
    include mime.types;
    default_type application/octet-stream;
    sendfile on;
    keepalive_timeout 65;
    log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                    '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                    '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';
    server {
        listen 80;
        server_name bbs.dengchuanghai.org;
        location / {
            root html/bbs;
            index index.html index.htm;
        }
        access_log logs/access_bbs.log main;
    }
}

Create document root and add identifying content:

On web01 (192.168.2.82):

mkdir -p /app/nginx/html/bbs
echo "192.168.2.82 bbs" > /app/nginx/html/bbs/index.html
echo "192.168.2.82 bbs.dengchuanghai.org" >> /etc/hosts

On web02 (192.168.2.78):

mkdir -p /app/nginx/html/bbs
echo "192.168.2.78 bbs" > /app/nginx/html/bbs/index.html
echo "192.168.2.78 bbs.dengchuanghai.org" >> /etc/hosts

Valiadte and start Nginx:

/app/nginx/sbin/nginx -t
/app/nginx/sbin/nginx
ss -tnlp | grep 80

Configure the Load Balancer (192.168.2.76)

Insure vim is installed:

yum -y install vim-enhanced

Edit /app/nginx/conf/nginx.conf:

worker_processes 1;
events {
    worker_connections 1024;
}
http {
    include mime.types;
    default_type application/octet-stream;
    sendfile on;
    keepalive_timeout 65;
    upstream backend_pool {
        server 192.168.2.82:80 weight=1;
        server 192.168.2.78:80 weight=1;
    }
    server {
        listen 80;
        server_name www.dengchuanghai.org;
        location / {
            proxy_pass http://backend_pool;
        }
    }
}

Add host entry for local resolution:

echo "192.168.2.76 www.dengchuanghai.org" >> /etc/hosts

Test configuration and launch Nginx:

/app/nginx/sbin/nginx -t
/app/nginx/sbin/nginx

Access the service via a browser using the load balancer’s IP address or configured domain.