Everything written down
Documentation
There is a lot of it, in four different shapes, because different questions want different answers. This page says which one to reach for.
How to, searchable
326 short answers to the questions people actually have while setting a site up. Type what you are trying to do and the list narrows as you type.
Reach for this when you know what you want to do and need the steps.
OpenStep by step guides
Twelve worked examples that take a real job from start to finish, with example values you can substitute your own into.
Reach for this when you are doing something for the first time.
OpenFeature reference
44 pages, one per feature. What it is for, how it works underneath, where it falls short, and what to use instead when it does.
Reach for this when you want to understand something rather than do it.
OpenGetting started
The whole setup, from two empty servers to a live site, written for somebody who has never installed a load balancer before.
Reach for this on day one.
OpenThe user guide
Forty one chapters, written for somebody handed two servers
The software ships with a full user guide as a Word document. It assumes you have not run a load balancer before, and every word that is unavoidable jargon is explained the first time it appears and again in the glossary.
It lives in the repository at docs/Failover-LB-User-Guide.docx. Open it in
Word and the contents page fills itself in, so every heading becomes a link.
Every screenshot in it is of the software actually running. Anything drawn on top in red was added for the guide and is not on your screen.
What is in it
| Part | Chapters | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 to 7 | From two empty servers to signed in and looking around |
| 2 | 8 to 17 | The everyday work: pools, sites, paths, certificates, error pages, limits, maps, TCP and UDP, applying changes, utilization |
| 3 | 18 to 22 | Running two servers as a pair, DNS failover, the nginx build, upgrades |
| 4 | 23 to 25 | Users and roles, backup and recovery, what to do when something is wrong |
| 5 | 26 to 28 | Worked examples: putting a site live, DNS failover end to end, taking a server out |
| 6 | 29 to 30 | The site and pool screens, control by control |
| 7 | 31 | Importing an existing nginx configuration |
| 8 | 32 to 33 | Settings, and your own account |
| 9 | 34 to 35 | The nginx build screen, and the paid nginx comparison |
| 10 | 36 | Every dialog, field by field |
| 11 | 37 | The tunnel |
| 12 | 38 | Certificates from a paid authority |
| 13 | 39 | Backup and restore, in full |
| 14 | 40 to 41 | How DNS failover works, and how big the servers need to be |
| Appendices | Ports, files and folders, glossary |
Reference
The short pages people look up
Ports
Every port, what it is for, and who should be able to reach it.
OpenFiles and folders
Where everything lives on disk, and which paths you must never edit by hand.
OpenGlossary
Every term this software uses, in one sentence each.
Opennginx modules
What the build includes and which feature each module makes possible.
OpenEnvironment settings
The values that live in the settings file rather than in the screen, and why.
OpenCommands
Every command line tool that ships with it, with what each option does.
OpenHow this documentation stays true
The user guide is generated from source rather than written as a document, so it can be rebuilt as the software changes rather than drifting away from it. Do not edit the Word file by hand: it is overwritten every time the guide is rebuilt.
The pages on this site are written by hand and are kept honest a different way: every screenshot is captured from a live node, the comparison table is the same data the product ships on its own comparison page, and the load test numbers are what was measured rather than what was hoped for.
Where it is likely to be wrong first
Anything that names a specific version number, and anything about the two commercial appliances, which move independently of this project. If a feature has changed and a page here is now wrong, the source is the thing to trust.
Two fresh servers is all it takes
Ubuntu 22.04 or newer, root access, and about twenty minutes. The installer does the rest and it is safe to run twice.