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Semicolony ELI5 · comic

Reverse proxy.

A receptionist who takes every visitor at the front desk and quietly routes them to the right office in back.

  1. Which office do I want?
    which office?
    1

    A building full of back offices is no good if visitors have to find the right one alone.

  2. FRONT DESK the only public door
    2

    So you put one front desk out front — the single public door.

  3. desk all check in here
    3

    Every visitor checks in there; nobody talks to the offices directly.

  4. desk unseals TLS, checks the ask
    4

    The desk unseals the envelope (terminates TLS) and checks the request.

  5. desk /api /img routed to the right office
    5

    Then it routes each ask to the right office and spreads load across healthy ones.

  6. Same desk as always.
    desk swap a server, nobody notices
    6

    You can swap, restart, or add offices in back, and the visitor never notices.

A front desk that takes every visitor and quietly sends each to the right office in back.
Semicolony semicolony.dev/eli5/reverse-proxy/comic
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