How the proxy routes a request

The proxy reads the Host header of each request, finds the service and sends the request to one instance.

ACME challenge. With HTTPS on, the proxy answers the ACME HTTP-01 challenges at /.well-known/acme-challenge/ on plain HTTP.

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What the proxy does for each request

The proxy does these steps in this order. The first two steps apply only to two special paths.

The host

The Host header gives the hostname that the client wants. This is how one proxy serves many services on one IP address.

When the proxy reads the host, it ignores:

Public URLs

Web services and static sites answer at one public URL under each domain of the server.

Load balancing

The proxy gives each new request to the next instance of the service, in turn.