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Reverse proxy and service mesh built on top of Cloudflare's Pingora

#rust #webdev #ingres #programming

Aralez (Արալեզ),

Reverse proxy and service mesh built on top of Cloudflare's Pingora

What Aralez means ?
Aralez = Արալեզ .Named after the legendary Armenian guardian spirit, winged dog-like creature, that descend upon fallen heroes to lick their wounds and resurrect them..

Built on Rust, on top of Cloudflare’s Pingora engine, Aralez delivers world-class performance, security and scalability — right out of the box.

🔧 Key Features

  • Dynamic Config Reloads — Upstreams can be updated live via API, no restart required.
  • TLS Termination — Built-in OpenSSL support.
    • Automatic load of certificates — Automatically reads and loads certificates from a folder, without a restart.
  • Upstreams TLS detection — Aralez will automatically detect if upstreams uses secure connection.
  • Built in rate limiter — Limit requests to server, by setting up upper limit for requests per seconds, per virtualhost.
    • Global rate limiter — Set rate limit for all virtualhosts.
    • Per path rate limiter — Set rate limit for specific paths. Path limits will override global limits.
  • Authentication — Supports Basic Auth, API tokens, and JWT verification.
    • Basic Auth
    • API Key via x-api-key header
    • JWT Auth, with tokens issued by Aralez itself via /jwt API
      • ⬇️ See below for examples and implementation details.
  • Load Balancing Strategies
    • Round-robin
    • Failover with health checks
    • Sticky sessions via cookies
  • Unified Port — Serve HTTP and WebSocket traffic over the same connection.
  • Built in file server — Build in minimalistic file server for serving static files, should be added as upstreams for public access.
  • Memory Safe — Created purely on Rust.
  • High Performance — Built with Pingora and tokio for async I/O.

🌍 Highlights

  • ⚙️ Upstream Providers:
    • file Upstreams are declared in config file.
    • consul Upstreams are dynamically updated from Hashicorp Consul.
  • 🔁 Hot Reloading: Modify upstreams on the fly via upstreams.yaml — no restart needed.
  • 🔮 Automatic WebSocket Support: Zero config — connection upgrades are handled seamlessly.
  • 🔮 Automatic GRPC Support: Zero config, Requires ssl to proxy, gRPC handled seamlessly.
  • 🔮 Upstreams Session Stickiness: Enable/Disable Sticky sessions globally.
  • 🔐 TLS Termination: Fully supports TLS for upstreams and downstreams.
  • 🛡️ Built-in Authentication Basic Auth, JWT, API key.
  • 🧠 Header Injection: Global and per-route header configuration.
  • 🧪 Health Checks: Pluggable health check methods for upstreams.
  • 🛰️ Remote Config Push: Lightweight HTTP API to update configs from CI/CD or other systems.

📁 File Structure 

.
├── main.yaml           # Main configuration loaded at startup
├── upstreams.yaml      # Watched config with upstream mappings
├── etc/
│   ├── server.crt      # TLS certificate (required if using TLS)
│   └── key.pem         # TLS private key
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🛠 Configuration Overview

🔧 main.yaml

Key Example Value Description
threads 12 Number of running daemon threads. Optional, defaults to 1
user aralez Optional, Username for running aralez after dropping root privileges, requires to launch as root
group aralez Optional,Group for running aralez after dropping root privileges, requires to launch as root
daemon false Run in background (boolean)
upstream_keepalive_pool_size 500 Pool size for upstream keepalive connections
pid_file /tmp/aralez.pid Path to PID file
error_log /tmp/aralez_err.log Path to error log file
upgrade_sock /tmp/aralez.sock Path to live upgrade socket file
config_address 0.0.0.0:3000 HTTP API address for pushing upstreams.yaml from remote location
config_tls_address 0.0.0.0:3001 HTTPS API address for pushing upstreams.yaml from remote location
config_tls_certificate etc/server.crt Certificate file path for API. Mandatory if proxy_address_tls is set, else optional
proxy_tls_grade (high, medium, unsafe) Grade of TLS ciphers, for easy configuration. High matches Qualys SSL Labs A+ (defaults to medium)
config_tls_key_file etc/key.pem Private Key file path. Mandatory if proxy_address_tls is set, else optional
proxy_address_http 0.0.0.0:6193 Aralez HTTP bind address
proxy_address_tls 0.0.0.0:6194 Aralez HTTPS bind address (Optional)
proxy_certificates etc/certs/ The directory containing certificate and key files. In a format {NAME}.crt, {NAME}.key.
upstreams_conf etc/upstreams.yaml The location of upstreams file
log_level info Log level , possible values : info, warn, error, debug, trace, off
hc_method HEAD Healthcheck method (HEAD, GET, POST are supported) UPPERCASE
hc_interval 2 Interval for health checks in seconds
master_key 5aeff7f9-7b94-447c-af60-e8c488544a3e Master key for working with API server and JWT Secret generation
file_server_folder /some/local/folder Optional, local folder to serve
file_server_address 127.0.0.1:3002 Optional, Local address for file server. Can set as upstream for public access
config_api_enabled true Boolean to enable/disable remote config push capability

🌐 upstreams.yaml

  • provider: file or consul
  • File-based upstreams define:
    • Hostnames and routing paths
    • Backend servers (load-balanced)
    • Optional request headers, specific to this upstream
  • Global headers (e.g., CORS) apply to all proxied responses
  • Optional authentication (Basic, API Key, JWT)

🛠 Installation

Download the prebuilt binary for your architecture from releases section of GitHub repo
Make the binary executable chmod 755 ./aralez-VERSION and run.

File names:

File Name Description
aralez-x86_64-musl.gz Static Linux x86_64 binary, without any system dependency
aralez-x86_64-glibc.gz Dynamic Linux x86_64 binary, with minimal system dependencies
aralez-aarch64-musl.gz Static Linux ARM64 binary, without any system dependency
aralez-aarch64-glibc.gz Dynamic Linux ARM64 binary, with minimal system dependencies
sadoyan/aralez Docker image on Debian 13 slim (https://hub.docker.com/r/sadoyan/aralez)

Via docker

docker run -d \
  -v /local/path/to/config:/etc/aralez:ro \
  -p 80:80 \
  -p 443:443 \
  sadoyan/aralez
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💡 Note

In general glibc builds are working faster, but have few, basic, system dependencies for example :

    linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffeea33b000)
    libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007f09e7377000)
    libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f09e6320000)
    libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f09e613f000)
    /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f09e73b1000)
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These are common to any Linux systems, so the binary should work on almost any Linux system.

musl builds are 100% portable, static compiled binaries and have zero system depencecies.
In general musl builds have a little less performance.
The most intensive tests shows 107k-110k requests per second on Glibc binaries against 97k-100k Musl ones.

🔌 Running the Proxy 

./aralez -c path/to/main.yaml
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🔌 Systemd integration 

cat > /etc/systemd/system/aralez.service <<EOF
[Service]
Type=forking
PIDFile=/run/aralez.pid
ExecStart=/bin/aralez -d -c /etc/aralez.conf
ExecReload=kill -QUIT $MAINPID
ExecReload=/bin/aralez -u -d -c /etc/aralez.conf
EOF
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systemctl enable aralez.service.
systemctl restart aralez.service.
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💡 Example

A sample upstreams.yaml entry:

provider: "file"
sticky_sessions: false
to_https: false
rate_limit: 10
headers:
  - "Access-Control-Allow-Origin:*"
  - "Access-Control-Allow-Methods:POST, GET, OPTIONS"
  - "Access-Control-Max-Age:86400"
authorization:
  type: "jwt"
  creds: "910517d9-f9a1-48de-8826-dbadacbd84af-cb6f830e-ab16-47ec-9d8f-0090de732774"
myhost.mydomain.com:
  paths:
    "/":
      rate_limit: 20
      to_https: false
      headers:
        - "X-Some-Thing:Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"
        - "X-Proxy-From:Hopaaaaaaaaaaaar"
      servers:
        - "127.0.0.1:8000"
        - "127.0.0.2:8000"
    "/foo":
      to_https: true
      headers:
        - "X-Another-Header:Hohohohoho"
      servers:
        - "127.0.0.4:8443"
        - "127.0.0.5:8443"
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This means:

  • Sticky sessions are disabled globally. This setting applies to all upstreams. If enabled all requests will be 301 redirected to HTTPS.
  • HTTP to HTTPS redirect disabled globally, but can be overridden by to_https setting per upstream.
  • Requests to each hosted domains will be limited to 10 requests per second per virtualhost.
    • Requests limits are calculated per requester ip plus requested virtualhost.
    • If the requester exceeds the limit it will receive 429 Too Many Requests error.
    • Optional. Rate limiter will be disabled if the parameter is entirely removed from config.
  • Requests to myhost.mydomain.com/ will be limited to 20 requests per second.
  • Requests to myhost.mydomain.com/ will be proxied to 127.0.0.1 and 127.0.0.2.
  • Plain HTTP to myhost.mydomain.com/foo will get 301 redirect to configured TLS port of Aralez.
  • Requests to myhost.mydomain.com/foo will be proxied to 127.0.0.4 and 127.0.0.5.
  • SSL/TLS for upstreams is detected automatically, no need to set any config parameter.
    • Assuming the 127.0.0.5:8443 is SSL protected. The inner traffic will use TLS.
    • Self-signed certificates are silently accepted.
  • Global headers (CORS for this case) will be injected to all upstreams.
  • Additional headers will be injected into the request for myhost.mydomain.com.
  • You can choose any path, deep nested paths are supported, the best match chosen.
  • All requests to servers will require JWT token authentication (You can comment out the authorization to disable it),
    • Firs parameter specifies the mechanism of authorisation jwt
    • Second is the secret key for validating jwt tokens

🔄 Hot Reload

  • Changes to upstreams.yaml are applied immediately.
  • No need to restart the proxy — just save the file.
  • If consul provider is chosen, upstreams will be periodically update from Consul's API.

🔐 TLS Support

To enable TLS for A proxy server: Currently only OpenSSL is supported, working on Boringssl and Rustls

  1. Set proxy_address_tls in main.yaml
  2. Provide tls_certificate and tls_key_file

📡 Remote Config API

Push new upstreams.yaml over HTTP to config_address (:3000 by default). Useful for CI/CD automation or remote config updates.
URL parameter. key=MASTERKEY is required. MASTERKEY is the value of master_key in the main.yaml

curl -XPOST --data-binary @./etc/upstreams.txt 127.0.0.1:3000/conf?key=${MASTERKEY}
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🔐 Authentication (Optional)

  • Adds authentication to all requests.
  • Only one method can be active at a time.
  • basic : Standard HTTP Basic Authentication requests.
  • apikey : Authentication via x-api-key header, which should match the value in config.
  • jwt: JWT authentication implemented via araleztoken= url parameter. /some/url?araleztoken=TOKEN
  • jwt: JWT authentication implemented via Authorization: Bearer <token> header.
    • To obtain JWT a token, you should send generate request to built in api server's /jwt endpoint.
    • master_key: should match configured masterkey in main.yaml and upstreams.yaml.
    • owner : Just a placeholder, can be anything.
    • valid : Time in minutes during which the generated token will be valid.

Example JWT token generation request

PAYLOAD='{
    "master_key": "910517d9-f9a1-48de-8826-dbadacbd84af-cb6f830e-ab16-47ec-9d8f-0090de732774",
    "owner": "valod",
    "valid": 10
}'

TOK=`curl -s -XPOST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "$PAYLOAD"  http://127.0.0.1:3000/jwt  | cut -d '"' -f4`
echo $TOK
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Example Request with JWT token

With Authorization: Bearer header

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer ${TOK}" -H 'Host: myip.mydomain.com' http://127.0.0.1:6193/
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With URL parameter (Very useful if you want to generate and share temporary links)

curl -H 'Host: myip.mydomain.com' "http://127.0.0.1:6193/?araleztoken=${TOK}`"
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Example Request with API Key

curl -H "x-api-key: ${APIKEY}" --header 'Host: myip.mydomain.com' http://127.0.0.1:6193/
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Example Request with Basic Auth

curl  -u username:password -H 'Host: myip.mydomain.com' http://127.0.0.1:6193/
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📃 License

Apache License Version 2.0

🧠 Notes

  • Uses Pingora under the hood for efficiency and flexibility.
  • Designed for edge proxying, internal routing, or hybrid cloud scenarios.
  • Transparent, fully automatic WebSocket upgrade support.
  • Transparent, fully automatic gRPC proxy.
  • Sticky session support.
  • HTTP2 ready.

📊 Why Choose Aralez? – Feature Comparison

Feature Aralez Nginx HAProxy Traefik
Hot Reload ✅ Yes (live, API/file) ⚠️ Reloads config ⚠️ Reloads config ✅ Yes (dynamic)
JWT Auth ✅ Built-in ❌ External scripts ❌ External Lua or agent ⚠️ With plugins
WebSocket Support ✅ Automatic ⚠️ Manual config ✅ Yes ✅ Yes
gRPC Support ✅ Automatic (no config) ⚠️ Manual + HTTP/2 + TLS ⚠️ Complex setup ✅ Native
TLS Termination ✅ Built-in (OpenSSL) ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ✅ Yes
TLS Upstream Detection ✅ Automatic ❌ ❌ ❌
HTTP/2 Support ✅ Automatic ⚠️ Requires extra config ⚠️ Requires build flags ✅ Native
Sticky Sessions ✅ Cookie-based ⚠️ In plus version only ✅ ✅
Prometheus Metrics ✅ Built in ⚠️ With Lua or exporter ⚠️ With external script ✅ Native
Built With 🦀 Rust C C Go

💡 Simple benchmark by Oha

⚠️ These benchmarks use :

  • 3 async Rust echo servers on a local network with 1Gbit as upstreams.
  • A dedicated server for running Aralez
  • A dedicated server for running Oha
  • The following upstreams configuration.
  • 9 test URLs from simple / to nested up to 7 subpaths. 
  myhost.mydomain.com:
    paths:
      "/":
        to_https: false
        headers:
          - "X-Proxy-From:Aralez"
        servers:
          - "192.168.211.211:8000"
          - "192.168.211.212:8000"
          - "192.168.211.213:8000"
      "/ping":
        to_https: false
        headers:
          - "X-Some-Thing:Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"
          - "X-Proxy-From:Aralez"
        servers:
          - "192.168.211.211:8000"
          - "192.168.211.212:8000"
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💡 Results reflect synthetic performance under optimal conditions.

  • CPU : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1270 v6 @ 3.80GHz
  • 300 : simultaneous connections
  • Duration : 10 Minutes
  • Binary : aralez-x86_64-glibc 
Summary:
  Success rate: 100.00%
  Total:    600.0027 secs
  Slowest:  0.2138 secs
  Fastest:  0.0002 secs
  Average:  0.0023 secs
  Requests/sec: 129777.3838

  Total data:   0 B
  Size/request: 0 B
  Size/sec: 0 B

Response time histogram:
  0.000 [1]        |
  0.022 [77668026] |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
  0.043 [190362]   |
  0.064 [7908]     |
  0.086 [319]      |
  0.107 [4]        |
  0.128 [0]        |
  0.150 [0]        |
  0.171 [0]        |
  0.192 [0]        |
  0.214 [4]        |

Response time distribution:
  10.00% in 0.0012 secs
  25.00% in 0.0016 secs
  50.00% in 0.0020 secs
  75.00% in 0.0026 secs
  90.00% in 0.0033 secs
  95.00% in 0.0040 secs
  99.00% in 0.0078 secs
  99.90% in 0.0278 secs
  99.99% in 0.0434 secs


Details (average, fastest, slowest):
  DNS+dialup:   0.0161 secs, 0.0002 secs, 0.0316 secs
  DNS-lookup:   0.0000 secs, 0.0000 secs, 0.0000 secs

Status code distribution:
  [200] 77866624 responses

Error distribution:
  [158] aborted due to deadline
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Aralez

  • CPU : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1270 v6 @ 3.80GHz
  • 300 : simultaneous connections
  • Duration : 10 Minutes
  • Binary : aralez-x86_64-musl 
Summary:
  Success rate: 100.00%
  Total:    600.0021 secs
  Slowest:  0.2182 secs
  Fastest:  0.0002 secs
  Average:  0.0024 secs
  Requests/sec: 123870.5820

  Total data:   0 B
  Size/request: 0 B
  Size/sec: 0 B

Response time histogram:
  0.000 [1]        |
  0.022 [74254679] |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
  0.044 [61400]    |
  0.066 [5911]     |
  0.087 [385]      |
  0.109 [0]        |
  0.131 [0]        |
  0.153 [0]        |
  0.175 [0]        |
  0.196 [0]        |
  0.218 [1]        |

Response time distribution:
  10.00% in 0.0012 secs
  25.00% in 0.0016 secs
  50.00% in 0.0021 secs
  75.00% in 0.0028 secs
  90.00% in 0.0037 secs
  95.00% in 0.0045 secs
  99.00% in 0.0077 secs
  99.90% in 0.0214 secs
  99.99% in 0.0424 secs


Details (average, fastest, slowest):
  DNS+dialup:   0.0066 secs, 0.0002 secs, 0.0210 secs
  DNS-lookup:   0.0000 secs, 0.0000 secs, 0.0000 secs

Status code distribution:
  [200] 74322377 responses

Error distribution:
  [228] aborted due to deadline
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Aralez

🚀 Aralez, Nginx, Traefik performance benchmark

This benchmark is done on 4 servers. With CPU Intel(R) Xeon(R) E-2174G CPU @ 3.80GHz, 64 GB RAM.

  1. Sever runs Aralez, Traefik, Nginx on different ports. Tuned as much as I could .
  2. 3x Upstreams servers, running Nginx. Replying with dummy json hardcoded in config file for max performance.

All servers are connected to the same switch with 1GB port in datacenter , not a home lab. The results:
Aralez

The results show requests per second performed by Load balancer. You can see 3 batches with 800 concurrent users.

  1. Requests via http1.1 to plain text endpoint.
  2. Requests to via http2 to SSL endpoint.
  3. Mixed workload with plain http1.1 and htt2 SSL.

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