Request: Built-in Load Balancing Management & Traffic Visualization

Summary It would be great to introduce a native Load Balancing management interface into NGINX UI.

The goal would be to allow users to configure and observe request distribution across multiple upstream services directly from the UI without manually editing upstream blocks.

Problem Today, NGINX UI makes many configuration tasks significantly easier, but managing load-balanced upstreams still requires a relatively manual workflow.

For setups with multiple backend services (containers, microservices, replicated applications, failover groups, etc.), users currently need to:

• Configure upstream blocks manually
• Adjust balancing strategies by editing config files
• Inspect traffic
• Troubleshoot request routing without visibility inside NGINX UI

Proposed Solution Add a Load Balancer Management section to NGINX UI.

Core Features

1. Upstream Pool Management

• Create and edit upstream groups visually
• Add/remove backend targets
• Enable/disable backends dynamically
• Weight configuration per node

1. Balancing Logic Configuration

Support common NGINX balancing methods:

• Round Robin
• Least Connections
• IP Hash
• Hash-based routing
• Random
• Weighted balancing

Optional:

• Sticky sessions
• Failover priorities
• Traffic splitting (e.g. 90/10 deployments)

1. Live Traffic Visualization

A real-time dashboard showing:

• Active requests per backend
• Request flow visualization
• Backend response times
• Error rates
• Connection counts
• Traffic distribution percentages

A simple flow graph / topology view would be especially useful:

Client → LB → Backend A / Backend B / Backend C

1. Operational Controls

• Drain mode for maintenance
• Temporary backend disabling
• Instant apply / rollback
• Config validation before deployment

Possible Implementation Considerations

• Generate upstream configuration blocks automatically
• Integrate with existing metrics/log infrastructure where available
• Optional support for Nginx Plus features if detected
• Lightweight mode for OSS Nginx installations

Offer to Contribute

I’d be happy to help contribute or implement parts of this feature if there is interest from the maintainers.

The only thing I’d ask is to align beforehand on scope and expectations — my previous contribution ended up sitting unmerged for quite a long time, so I’d prefer to avoid investing weeks into implementation if the direction is not something the project wants to maintain.

If this idea fits the roadmap, I’d be happy to discuss an implementation approach first.