Question

Load Balancer WIldcard but with one subdomain going to a different droplet

Right now I’m using an nginx VPS to terminate SSL (wildcard and naked domain), but to forward one specific subdomain to a different server. It works fine.

I’m wondering though if I can leverage DO’s load balancers for this instead of managing it myself.

I have a group of servers for my main app, which responds to a lot of different subdomains (like a thousand or so, one for each customer). I.e. a.example.com, b.example.com, etc.

I have a second group of servers running a different application which needs to respond to one specific subdomain (legacy.example.com).

I get how to configure the DO load balancers to handle #1 or #2 in a vacuum, but I can’t find a way to do both.

To summarize, what I need to do is:

  1. SSL Terminate *.example.com (via letsencrypt wildcard managed by the LB).
  2. Proxy just legacy.example.com to Droplet B.
  3. Proxy everything else *.example.com to Droplet A

So is there a way to write custom rules for the LB to handle this? Would having 2 LBs handle this? Or do I just stick with my current nginx VPS setup?


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Bobby Iliev
Site Moderator
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October 12, 2021
Accepted Answer

Hey @dave186771,

I believe that as of the time being adding custom load balancing rules is not possible with the Managed Load Balancers. But this sounds like it’d be super useful!

The best thing to do to get your voice heard regarding this would be to head over to our Product Ideas board and post a new idea, including as much information as possible for what you’d like to see implemented.

https://ideas.digitalocean.com/

Hope that helps! - Bobby.

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