# Recommendation for a reverse proxy+load balancer for mail servers



## nitin (Feb 9, 2022)

Hi,

I am looking for suggestions for open source reverse proxy+load balancer software for mail servers in production. I looked at haproxy, but as far as I could figure it out, it can only load balance but not reverse proxy. 

I have heard nginx can do it, but I am not sure.

Kindly recommend if you have first hand experience of using any such software.

Thanks in advance.

Nitin


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## nitin (Feb 9, 2022)

Apparently nginx also doesn't support SNI as a mail proxy


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## SirDice (Feb 9, 2022)

nitin said:


> I looked at haproxy, but as far as I could figure it out, it can only load balance but not reverse proxy.


It's a (reverse) proxy, it's even in the name. That said, it can only proxy HTTP(S), not SMTP. It _can_ load-balance plain TCP connections, but you can't do any of the fancy filtering like you can with HTTP traffic.


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## nitin (Feb 9, 2022)

SirDice said:


> That said, it can only proxy HTTP(S), not SMTP.


Yes that's precisely what I meant. It cannot reverse proxy SMTP. I wasn't referring to HTTP(S)


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## SirDice (Feb 9, 2022)

What problem are you trying to solve? You usually take a different approach when it comes to dealing with email (store and forward come to mind). Email isn't a 'real-time' protocol, it's perfectly fine if your mailserver is offline for a couple of minutes. Heck, mail typically only gets bounced after 5 _days_ of not being able to deliver it.


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## nitin (Feb 9, 2022)

Agreed. Perhaps, I am wasting my time on a non-issue.


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## nitin (Feb 10, 2022)

Closed


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