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SillyZir 6584c75999
reverseproxy: isolate active health-check state per distinct check config (#7916)
* reverseproxy: isolate active health-check state per distinct check config

Multiple reverse_proxy handlers configured with different active health
checks (health_uri, health_headers, ...) against the same upstream dial
address currently share a single Host in the global pool, so one
handler's failing probes mark the address unhealthy for every other
handler. Key the pool by dial address plus a stable fingerprint of the
active health-check config, so distinct checks get independent health
state.

The fingerprint is strictly internal to pool identity: the Prometheus
upstreams_healthy label and the /reverse_proxy/upstreams admin endpoint
continue to report the plain dial address, unchanged.

Dynamic upstreams are intentionally out of scope here: they resolve
through a separate per-lookup path (dynamicHosts) and collapsing there
has different lifetime semantics; noted for a follow-up.

Fixes #7870

* reverseproxy: use strings.Cut in hostKeyAddress

Satisfies the modernize linter; behaviour is unchanged, since Cut returns
the whole string when the separator is absent.

* reverseproxy: expose the health-check fingerprint as a public discriminator

Health state is now kept per (dial address, active health check config),
but both user-visible surfaces still reported address alone:

- caddy_reverse_proxy_upstreams_healthy was labeled only by upstream, so
  every handler sharing an address wrote the same series concurrently and
  the reported value was whichever updater ran last. The metric gains a
  health_check label carrying the config fingerprint ("" when no active
  checks), so each health target owns its series; aggregate across checks
  with sum/min by (upstream).

- /reverse_proxy/upstreams reported one entry per pool key but with only
  the plain address, so consumers indexing by address silently discarded
  all but one entry. Entries now carry health_check (omitted when empty),
  and the endpoint documents that (address, health_check) is the entry's
  identity — one entry per health target, deliberately not aggregated,
  since any aggregation here would be lossy and undocumented.

Tests: two handlers on one address with different checks must produce two
metric series reflecting their own state (fails if the fingerprint is
dropped from the label), and two admin entries distinguished by non-empty
fingerprints.

* reverseproxy: narrow the fix to per-Upstream active health counters

Move the consecutive active pass/fail counters from Host onto Upstream,
alongside the active unhealthy state that already lives there, instead of
re-keying the global host pool.

Host is keyed by dial address alone, but an active health check is
configured per handler, so two handlers dialing the same address with
different health_uri or health_headers share those counters and can push
each other over their own thresholds. Upstream is already per-handler and
already carries the active unhealthy flag, so the counters belong next to
it and the pool keeps its plain dial-address keys.

This drops the host key fingerprint and its exposure in the metric label
and the admin upstreams endpoint; the metric series identity is left for
separate consideration.

---------

Co-authored-by: SillyZir <269283839+SillyZir@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Zen Dodd <mail@steadytao.com>
2026-08-12 15:20:15 +10:00
.github deps: update GitHub Actions and Go modules (#7876) 2026-07-25 10:32:30 +00:00
caddyconfig caddyhttp: shield specific hostnames from a covering wildcard's client auth (#7920) 2026-08-12 15:09:58 +10:00
caddytest caddyhttp: shield specific hostnames from a covering wildcard's client auth (#7920) 2026-08-12 15:09:58 +10:00
cmd chore: fix sabotage spelling in nolint comments (#7892) 2026-07-18 08:14:38 +00:00
internal admin: Redact sensitive request headers in API logs (#7578) 2026-04-17 14:56:42 -06:00
modules reverseproxy: isolate active health-check state per distinct check config (#7916) 2026-08-12 15:20:15 +10:00
notify notify: implement windows service status and error notifications (#7389) 2025-12-12 07:56:30 -05:00
.editorconfig
.gitattributes
.gitignore
.golangci.yml caddyhttp: use canonical header key casing to avoid re-canonicalization (#7911) 2026-07-30 20:40:35 +10:00
.goreleaser.yml chore: Disable windows/arm build target (Go 1.26 disabled) (#7503) 2026-02-20 22:47:21 +00:00
.pre-commit-config.yaml chore: apply security best practices for CI (#7066) 2025-06-16 20:14:09 +00:00
AGENTS.md Update human and agent contributing guidelines 2026-06-20 14:19:24 -06:00
AUTHORS
LICENSE
README.md readme: Update logo 2026-06-16 23:39:45 -06:00
admin.go metrics: Add nil check for metricsHandler in AdminMetrics.serveHTTP (#7553) 2026-05-11 17:27:03 -06:00
admin_test.go metrics: Add nil check for metricsHandler in AdminMetrics.serveHTTP (#7553) 2026-05-11 17:27:03 -06:00
caddy.go metrics: Add nil check for metricsHandler in AdminMetrics.serveHTTP (#7553) 2026-05-11 17:27:03 -06:00
caddy_test.go
context.go core: preserve metrics registry in Context.WithValue (#7861) 2026-07-08 04:52:36 +10:00
context_test.go core: preserve metrics registry in Context.WithValue (#7861) 2026-07-08 04:52:36 +10:00
duration_fuzz.go
filepath.go
filepath_windows.go
filesystem.go
go.mod build(deps): bump google.golang.org/grpc from 1.81.1 to 1.82.1 (#7908) 2026-07-25 10:40:28 +00:00
go.sum build(deps): bump google.golang.org/grpc from 1.81.1 to 1.82.1 (#7908) 2026-07-25 10:40:28 +00:00
listen.go listeners: clean up stale Unix socket files on Windows (#7676) 2026-04-29 21:52:04 +10:00
listen_reuseUnixSocket.go listeners: clean up stale Unix socket files on Windows (#7676) 2026-04-29 21:52:04 +10:00
listen_reuseUnixSocket_windows.go listeners: clean up stale Unix socket files on Windows (#7676) 2026-04-29 21:52:04 +10:00
listen_unix.go chore: Use atomics where appropriate (#7648) 2026-04-25 03:47:54 -04:00
listen_unix_setopt.go
listen_unix_setopt_freebsd.go
listeners.go Set the QUIC InitialPacketSize to 1200 bytes (#7886) 2026-07-26 08:48:25 +10:00
listeners_fuzz.go
listeners_test.go core: propagate ECH keys to the QUIC listener (#7670) 2026-04-23 13:33:41 -06:00
logging.go logging: Adjustments to BufferedLog to keep logs in the correct order (#7257) 2025-09-15 09:29:50 -06:00
logging_test.go
metrics.go
modules.go core: Show JSON error offsets where possible (#7437) 2026-01-14 22:54:19 -05:00
modules_test.go
replacer.go perf(replacer): optimize memory allocation for file placeholders (#7773) 2026-05-27 14:20:33 +00:00
replacer_fuzz.go
replacer_test.go use a more modern writing style to simplify code (#7182) 2025-08-20 11:41:21 -06:00
service_windows.go
sigtrap.go
sigtrap_nonposix.go
sigtrap_posix.go core: Reloading with `SIGUSR1` if config never changed via admin (#7258) 2025-09-26 16:50:15 +00:00
storage.go
usagepool.go chore: Use atomics where appropriate (#7648) 2026-04-25 03:47:54 -04:00

README.md

Caddy

a project


Every site on HTTPS

Caddy is an extensible server platform that uses TLS by default.

Releases · Documentation · Get Help

      @caddyserver on Twitter   Caddy Forum
Caddy on Sourcegraph   Cloudsmith

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CertMagic


Menu

Features

  • Easy configuration with the Caddyfile
  • Powerful configuration with its native JSON config
  • Dynamic configuration with the JSON API
  • Config adapters if you don't like JSON
  • Automatic HTTPS by default
    • ZeroSSL and Let's Encrypt for public names
    • Fully-managed local CA for internal names & IPs
    • Can coordinate with other Caddy instances in a cluster
    • Multi-issuer fallback
    • Encrypted ClientHello (ECH) support
  • Stays up when other servers go down due to TLS/OCSP/certificate-related issues
  • Production-ready after serving trillions of requests and managing millions of TLS certificates
  • Scales to hundreds of thousands of sites as proven in production
  • HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, and HTTP/3 all supported by default
  • Highly extensible modular architecture lets Caddy do anything without bloat
  • Runs anywhere with no external dependencies (not even libc)
  • Written in Go, a language with higher memory safety guarantees than other servers
  • Actually fun to use
  • So much more to discover

Install

The simplest, cross-platform way to get started is to download Caddy from GitHub Releases and place the executable file in your PATH.

See our online documentation for other install instructions.

Build from source

Requirements:

For development

Note: These steps will not embed proper version information. For that, please follow the instructions in the next section.

$ git clone "https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy.git"
$ cd caddy/cmd/caddy/
$ go build

When you run Caddy, it may try to bind to low ports unless otherwise specified in your config. If your OS requires elevated privileges for this, you will need to give your new binary permission to do so. On Linux, this can be done easily with: sudo setcap cap_net_bind_service=+ep ./caddy

If you prefer to use go run which only creates temporary binaries, you can still do this with the included setcap.sh like so:

$ go run -exec ./setcap.sh main.go

If you don't want to type your password for setcap, use sudo visudo to edit your sudoers file and allow your user account to run that command without a password, for example:

username ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/setcap

replacing username with your actual username. Please be careful and only do this if you know what you are doing! We are only qualified to document how to use Caddy, not Go tooling or your computer, and we are providing these instructions for convenience only; please learn how to use your own computer at your own risk and make any needful adjustments.

Then you can run the tests in all modules or a specific one:

$ go test ./...
$ go test ./modules/caddyhttp/tracing/

With version information and/or plugins

Using our builder tool, xcaddy...

$ xcaddy build

...the following steps are automated:

  1. Create a new folder: mkdir caddy
  2. Change into it: cd caddy
  3. Copy Caddy's main.go into the empty folder. Add imports for any custom plugins you want to add.
  4. Initialize a Go module: go mod init caddy
  5. (Optional) Pin Caddy version: go get github.com/caddyserver/caddy/v2@version replacing version with a git tag, commit, or branch name.
  6. (Optional) Add plugins by adding their import: _ "import/path/here"
  7. Compile: go build -tags=nobadger,nomysql,nopgx

Quick start

The Caddy website has documentation that includes tutorials, quick-start guides, reference, and more.

We recommend that all users -- regardless of experience level -- do our Getting Started guide to become familiar with using Caddy.

If you've only got a minute, the website has several quick-start tutorials to choose from! However, after finishing a quick-start tutorial, please read more documentation to understand how the software works. 🙂

Overview

Caddy is most often used as an HTTPS server, but it is suitable for any long-running Go program. First and foremost, it is a platform to run Go applications. Caddy "apps" are just Go programs that are implemented as Caddy modules. Two apps -- tls and http -- ship standard with Caddy.

Caddy apps instantly benefit from automated documentation, graceful on-line config changes via API, and unification with other Caddy apps.

Although JSON is Caddy's native config language, Caddy can accept input from config adapters which can essentially convert any config format of your choice into JSON: Caddyfile, JSON 5, YAML, TOML, NGINX config, and more.

The primary way to configure Caddy is through its API, but if you prefer config files, the command-line interface supports those too.

Caddy exposes an unprecedented level of control compared to any web server in existence. In Caddy, you are usually setting the actual values of the initialized types in memory that power everything from your HTTP handlers and TLS handshakes to your storage medium. Caddy is also ridiculously extensible, with a powerful plugin system that makes vast improvements over other web servers.

To wield the power of this design, you need to know how the config document is structured. Please see our documentation site for details about Caddy's config structure.

Nearly all of Caddy's configuration is contained in a single config document, rather than being scattered across CLI flags and env variables and a configuration file as with other web servers. This makes managing your server config more straightforward and reduces hidden variables/factors.

Full documentation

Our website has complete documentation:

https://caddyserver.com/docs/

The docs are also open source. You can contribute to them here: https://github.com/caddyserver/website

Getting help

  • We advise companies using Caddy to secure a support contract through Ardan Labs before help is needed.

  • A sponsorship goes a long way! We can offer private help to sponsors. If Caddy is benefitting your company, please consider a sponsorship. This not only helps fund full-time work to ensure the longevity of the project, it provides your company the resources, support, and discounts you need; along with being a great look for your company to your customers and potential customers!

  • Individuals can exchange help for free on our community forum at https://caddy.community. Remember that people give help out of their spare time and good will. The best way to get help is to give it first!

Please use our issue tracker only for bug reports and feature requests, i.e. actionable development items (support questions will usually be referred to the forums).

About

Matthew Holt began developing Caddy in 2014 while studying computer science at Brigham Young University. (The name "Caddy" was chosen because this software helps with the tedious, mundane tasks of serving the Web, and is also a single place for multiple things to be organized together.) It soon became the first web server to use HTTPS automatically and by default, and now has hundreds of contributors and has served trillions of HTTPS requests.

The name "Caddy" is trademarked. The name of the software is "Caddy", not "Caddy Server" or "CaddyServer". Please call it "Caddy" or, if you wish to clarify, "the Caddy web server". Caddy is a registered trademark of Stack Holdings GmbH.

Caddy is a project of ZeroSSL, an HID Global company.

Debian package repository hosting is graciously provided by Cloudsmith. Cloudsmith is the only fully hosted, cloud-native, universal package management solution, that enables your organization to create, store and share packages in any format, to any place, with total confidence.