Here is a quick example haproxy configuration file that uses ACLs:

global
    log 127.0.0.1 local0
    log 127.0.0.1 local1 notice
    maxconn 4096
    user haproxy
    group haproxy
    daemon

defaults
    log global
    mode http
    option httplog
    option dontlognull
    retries 3
    option redispatch
    maxconn 2000
    contimeout 5000
    clitimeout 50000
    srvtimeout 50000

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backend www_example_com
    balance roundrobin
    cookie SERVERID insert nocache indirect
    option httpchk HEAD /check.txt HTTP/1.0
    option httpclose
    option forwardfor
    server Server1 10.1.1.1:80 cookie Server1
    server Server2 10.1.1.2:80 cookie Server2

backend www_domain_com
    balance roundrobin
    cookie SERVERID insert nocache indirect
    option httpchk HEAD /check.txt HTTP/1.0
    option httpclose
    option forwardfor
    server Server1 192.168.5.1:80 cookie Server1
    server Server2 192.168.5.2:80 cookie Server2

In HAProxy 1.3, the ACL rules are placed in a “frontend” and (depending on the logic) the request is proxied through to any number of “backends”. You’ll notice in our frontend entitled “http-in” that I’m checking the host header using the hdr_end feature. This feature performs a simple check on the host header to see if it ends with the provided argument.

You can find the rest of the Layer 7 matching options by searching for “7.5.3. Matching at Layer 7″ in the configuration doc I linked to above. A few of the options I didn’t use but you might find useful are path_beg, path_end, path_sub, path_reg, url_beg, url_end, url_sub, and url_reg. The *_reg commands allow you to perform RegEx matching on the url/path, but there is the usual performance consideration you need to make for RegEx (especially since this is a load balancer).

The first “use_backend” that matches a request will be used, and if none are matched, then HAProxy will use the “default_backend”. You can also combine ACL rules in the “use_backend” statements to match one or more rules. See the configuration doc for more helpful info.

If you’re looking to use HAProxy with SSL, that requires a different approach, and I’ll blog about that soon.