Hi everybody, Christian here. In this video, I show you the new reverse proxy traffic that I've been using the last weeks since I started to work more with Kubernetes and any cloud service deployments. I show you how to set up traffic on a docker host to expose and load balance all your container applications with trusted SSL certs from Let's Encrypt. It's really cool and probably the most flexible reverse proxy that I've used so far.
What's also really cool is if you want to protect your administrative web interfaces, SSH sessions, databases, or Kubernetes clusters with additional two-factor authentication, then take a look at the sponsor of this video, teleport. Because with teleport, you can protect and securely authenticate to your server's infrastructure, log any user's actions, and record sessions. You can install the free community edition, completely self-hosted at no cost, so just download and try it out.
I already talked about reverse proxies and load balancing, but let's dive a little bit deeper into that because reverse proxies and load balancers are technically not the same, although most applications solve both of these tasks. So let's assume you as a client, you want to run a web application and host this on a server. A reverse proxy sitting in between node takes that connection from the client and forwards it to the server where it is processed. There are a couple of reasons why this is useful.
So, is Traefik the best reverse proxy or load balancer in that case? Well, it probably is the most flexible one because you can do so much with it. Are you running a Docker host and you want to protect all your services with trusted SSL certs automatically? Or maybe you are running a production Kubernetes cluster in the cloud where you need ingress controllers? Or you might want to add additional authentication services to it? So, Traefik offers all these different features and is very flexible in configuration, but all these features also make it very complex.
Ok, so let's start configuring Traefik on our Docker server, and I'll show you how to do that. But first of all, I want to show you the homepage of Traefik Labs. Because they also make other products around the Traefik proxy. So, if you want to get started with Traefik, then just go to the homepage. Go to Products and select Traefik Proxy. And if you want to get started with that and know how to configure Traefik, then just click on Get Started. And this will take you to the official documentation. As I said in the beginning of this video, the documentation might seem very intimidating when you see it the first time.
The nice thing about Traffic is that we don't need to modify any of the configuration files of Traffic itself if we want to change the configuration to expose our Nginx container. We simply can configure or change the labels of it. So, let's add another label that is called traffic.http.routers.nginx.tls and we now set this to true. So now we also need to take care that we need to switch our entry point from web to web secure because otherwise Traffic wouldn't accept the request on the port HTTPS.
Q: What does the video 'Introduction to Reverse Proxy Traffic with Let's Encrypt SSL Certs' cover?
A: The video covers setting up reverse proxy traffic on a docker host to expose and load balance container applications with trusted SSL certs from Let's Encrypt.
Q: How can you enhance security with Two-Factor Authentication using Teleport?
A: You can protect administrative web interfaces, SSH sessions, databases, or Kubernetes clusters with additional two-factor authentication by using Teleport.
Q: What is the difference between reverse proxies and load balancers?
A: Reverse proxies and load balancers are technically different entities although most applications serve both purposes. A reverse proxy acts as an intermediary between clients and servers, forwarding client connections to the server for processing.
Q: Is Traefik a good solution for reverse proxies and load balancers?
A: Traefik is considered one of the most flexible solutions for reverse proxies and load balancers as it offers features like automatic SSL cert protection for Docker services, Kubernetes ingress controllers, and additional authentication services. However, its flexibility can also make it complex.
Q: How can Traefik be configured on a Docker server?
A: Traefik can be configured on a Docker server by visiting Traefik Labs' homepage, going to Products, selecting Traefik Proxy, and following the 'Get Started' link to access the official documentation for configuration.
Q: What is the benefit of dynamic configuration of traffic in Docker?
A: With Traffic, configuration changes to expose Nginx container do not require modifying Traffic's configuration files. Instead, labels can be added or modified. For example, setting traffic.http.routers.nginx.tls to true enables HTTPS support.
