What Actually Happens Inside a Reverse Proxy: A Technical Breakdown
A reverse proxy like nginx sits between a browser and an app server, maintaining two separate TCP connections rather than letting them communicate directly. This split means the browser never knows the app server's IP, port, or even that it exists. Unlike a forward proxy, which hides the client, a reverse proxy hides the server infrastructure from incoming requests. Key nginx directives such as proxy_set_header are needed to preserve original request details — like the client's IP and domain — that are lost during this handoff. The article is Part 1 of a series, with Part 2 set to compare the design philosophies of nginx, Caddy, Traefik, and HAProxy.
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