Load Balancer

This Load Balancer distributes incoming traffic evenly across a set of servers using a round-robin algorithm.

Prerequisites

• Docker

Setup

Clone the Repository

git clone <repository-url>

Build the Docker Environment

docker compose build

Deployment

Create the Build

docker compose up

This compiles the application. Compiled binaries are located at target/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/release/load_balancer.

Running the Load Balancer

1. Prepare the Hosts File: Create a hosts.txt file containing the addresses of the upstream hosts that will receive traffic. For example:

0.0.0.0:8001
0.0.0.0:8002

2. Make Executable: Grant execution permissions to the load balancer binary:

chmod +x load_balancer

3. Start the Load Balancer: Launch the load balancer with default settings:

./load_balancer

This command will start the load balancer on the default port (8080).

4. Custom Configuration: Optionally, start the load balancer with custom configuration:

./load_balancer -p 6060 -h /path/to/hosts.txt -w 4

Command-Line Arguments

Short	Long	Description	Default
-p	--port	Port to listen on	8080
-h	--hosts	Path to upstream hosts	./hosts.txt
-w	--workers	Number of worker threads	4

Build path : target/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/release/load_balancer