HAProxy

add the GPG key for the repository for AWS-LC enabled HAProxy which is required for HTTP/3:

sudo wget -qO /usr/share/keyrings/HAPROXY-key-community.asc https://pks.haproxy.com/linux/community/RPM-GPG-KEY-HAProxy

add the HAProxy 3.4 performance repository for Debian 13 (Trixie) - note that the Debian 13 repository contains HAProxy 3.0:

echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/HAPROXY-key-community.asc] https://www.haproxy.com/download/haproxy/performance/debian/ha34 trixie main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/haproxy.list

update the repository:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Install HAProxy dedicated AWS-LC package:

sudo apt install haproxy-awslc -y

Check the installed version:

haproxy -v

Start and enable the service:

sudo systemctl start haproxy
sudo systemctl enable haproxy

Replace the contents of your /etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg file with this HAProxy Configuration configuration.

Add Whitelist and Blacklist files.

Check the configuration file:

sudo haproxy -c -f /etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg

Restart the proxy:

sudo systemctl restart haproxy

Open port 443 for TCP and UDP in your firewall. UDP is required for HTTP/3.

If you run a mail server behind the proxy you might run into DNS/hairpin NAT issues. You best solve this by adding your mail host to the host overrides table. In pfSense firewall this is at Services –> DNS Resolver –> General Settings, scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Install and configure acme.sh to set up automatic Let's Encrypt certificate generation

If you moved the certificate from a backend web server to HAProxy disable certificate renewal in the backend web server or delete the certificate:

sudo certbot delete --cert-name yourdomain.com
/etc/letsencrypt/renewal/mv yourdomain.com.conf /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/yourdomain.com.disabled

During transition from an old web server not behind HAProxy to a new proxied server you might need to still be able to renew certificates on the old server. Create the following alternative haproxy.cfg.certbot config file with a modified rule frontend public_inbound_http and a new backend rule backend http_server_certbot and copy it to haproxy.cfg:

frontend public_inbound_http
    bind *:80
    mode http
    default_backend http_server_certbot
backend http_server_certbot
    mode http
    cookie SERVERID insert indirect nocache
    server calypso 192.168.3.101:80 check

Reload the proxy rules:

sudo systemctl reload haproxy

SSH into your old server and run sudo certbot renew

After you have successfully renewed the certificates restore the production haproxy.cfg and reload the proxy rules

Note that access to your web sites is always guaranteed through HTTPS, but you create a small window where your sites could be accessed through HTTP directly. If your transition period last longer than a few days you might consider to automate this hack to automatically renew certificates on the old server.

Apache requires the mod_remoteip module to intercept the header and overwrite the connection IP. Enable the module:

sudo a2enmod remoteip

Configure the module. Create or edit /etc/apache2/conf-available/remoteip.conf and define your HAProxy server as a trusted internal proxy:

RemoteIPHeader X-Forwarded-For
RemoteIPInternalProxy 192.168.3.50  # this is your HAProxy private IP
SetEnvIf X-Forwarded-Proto "https" HTTPS=on # Ensure Apache changes the internal HTTPS environment variable if HAProxy says so

Enable the configuration:

sudo a2enconf remoteip

Apache's default log format uses %h (remote host), which still logs HAProxy's IP. You must change it to %a (client IP address).Edit your main Apache configuration or your VirtualHost file. Look for the LogFormat lines and modify %h to %a:

LogFormat "%a %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" combined

Test your config and restart Apache:

sudo apache2ctl configtest
sudo systemctl restart apache2

If HAProxy is forwarding raw TCP streams (e.g., passing SSL directly to Apache), it cannot inject an HTTP header. You must use the PROXY protocol instead. Append send-proxy or send-proxy-v2 to your backend server line:

backend passthrough_server
    mode tcp
    server web1 192.168.3.90:443 send-proxy check

If not evaluated properly this will break access to sites on such a passthrough server. Since I block access and check IP addresses at the proxy server at the earliest possible moment (e.g. tcp-request connection reject) I chose a different approach. I linked a temporary domain name to the backend server and transfer HTTP to access restricted sub-pages like phpmyadmin. For the configuration follow the settings used for backuppc.

Restart HAProxy

sudo systemctl restart haproxy

On your apache server ensure mod_remoteip is enabled. Open your Apache <VirtualHost> configuration and define the RemoteIPProxyProtocol directive:

<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerName example.com

    # Enable Proxy Protocol interpretation
    RemoteIPProxyProtocol On
    RemoteIPProxyProtocolExceptions 127.0.0.1

    # ... your SSL and document root settings ...
</VirtualHost>

Update your LogFormat to use %a instead of %h as described above, then restart Apache.

To be able to restrict access to domains with query string, which is not possible in HAProxy, you need to add IP addresses to a apache config file, for example /etc/apache2/conf-available/bco-trusted-ip.conf:

<RequireAny>
    # Local subnet
    Require ip 192.168.1
    # Fixed ip (if you have any)
    Require ip my.fixed.ip.addr
</RequireAny>

To add an IP address for a remote computer not in one of your trusted IP ranges create an empty file /etc/apache2/conf-available/bco-current-ip.conf.

Add an Include to every directory you want to restrict access to in your <VirtualHost> file:

...
<Directory /usr/share/phpmyadmin>
    Include conf-available/bco-trusted-ip.conf
    Include conf-available/bco-current-ip.conf
</Directory>
...

On the computer you need to get access for add the following command to update and remove your current IP address:

IP=$(curl -s https://api.ipify.org) && ssh -p 50322 your.domain.name "echo \"Require ip $IP\" > /etc/apache2/conf-available/bco-current-ip.conf && sudo /usr/bin/systemctl reload apache2"
ssh -p 22 your.domain.name "echo \"\" > /etc/apache2/conf-available/bco-current-ip.conf && sudo /usr/bin/systemctl reload apache2"

To make this work you need to add <user> to file apache in /etc/sudoers.d so <user> can reload the apache config as root without password:

vim /etc/sudoers.d/apache
<user> ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/systemctl reload apache2

Update the IP from another linux computer or WSL with the following file:

#!/bin/bash
# bco, 2026-09-20
# update my current IP address in Apache config
#
IP=$(curl -s https://api.ipify.org)

# Regex pattern matching 0-255 for individual octets
octet='(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|[1-9][0-9]|[0-9])'
pattern="^${octet}\.${octet}\.${octet}\.${octet}$"

if [[ $IP =~ $pattern ]]; then
	ssh -p 22 your.domain.name "echo \"Require ip $IP\" > /etc/apache2/conf-available/bco-current-ip.conf && sudo /usr/bin/systemctl reload apache2"
else
    echo "Invalid IP address"
    sleep 3
    exit 1
fi
exit 0

Put a shortcut on the Windows Desktop for easy access:

C:\Windows\System32\wsl.exe bash ~/batch/updateApacheIP

You should also put a shortcut on the Windows Desktop to remove the IP address after you don't need access anymore or move somewhere else.

This way you can add your computer to the trusted IP list (whitelist) no matter what is the current IP address.

// Tells Joomla to trust proxy headers (X-Forwarded-For, X-Forwarded-Proto)
public $behind_loadbalancer = '1'; 

// Forces Joomla to generate secure HTTPS URLs globally
public $force_ssl = '2'; 

// Optional: If Joomla still struggles to map assets correctly, explicitly define your live site URL
public $live_site = 'https://yourdomain.com';

What Is a Reverse Proxy and Why Do You Need One?

Configuration is explained in HAProxy configuration file: global, defaults, front and backend