How To Point Multiple Domains To Single AWS Application Load Balancer

AWS Application Load Balancer (ALB) is a popular and highly scalable load balancing solution for web applications running on AWS infrastructure. One of the most common use cases for ALB is to distribute incoming traffic to multiple Amazon EC2 instances, containers, or Lambda functions, ensuring high availability and fault tolerance for your application. In some cases, you might want to point multiple domains to a single AWS ALB.

Here’s how to point multiple domains to a single AWS ALB and set rules for each domain based on the host header and route to the appropriate target group:

1. Create an AWS ALB: You need to create an ALB and configure it to listen to incoming traffic on port 80 or 443, depending on whether you want to use HTTP or HTTPS. To create an ALB, you can use the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI, or the AWS SDKs.
2. Register Targets: Once the ALB is created, you need to register the targets (e.g., EC2 instances, containers, Lambda functions) to which the incoming traffic should be routed. This can be done through the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI, or the AWS SDKs.
3. Create Target Groups: Once the targets are registered, you need to create target groups to manage the routing of traffic to the targets. You can create different target groups for each domain and associate them with the ALB.
4. Create Listeners: Next, you need to create listeners for the ALB to listen to incoming traffic on the desired ports. A listener is a process that checks for connection requests and forwards them to the target group. You can create different listeners for each domain, specifying the domain name and the SSL certificate associated with it.
5. Create DNS Records: Finally, you need to create DNS records for each domain to point to the ALB. You can use an Amazon Route 53 hosted zone or a different DNS provider to create the records. The records should be of type “A” and should point to the ALB’s IP address.

To set rules for each domain based on the host header and route the traffic to the appropriate target group, you need to add conditions to the listener rules. Here’s how:

1. Open the AWS Management Console and navigate to the ALB.
2. Click on the listeners tab and select the listener that you want to modify.
3. Click on the “Create rule” button and specify the conditions for the rule. You can add conditions based on the host header, path, and other attributes.
4. In the “Actions” section, select “Forward to” and choose the target group that you want to route the traffic to.
5. Repeat the above steps for each domain, creating a separate rule for each one.

By using this approach, you can configure the ALB to route incoming traffic to different target groups based on the host header. This allows you to easily manage and route traffic from multiple domains to different targets. The order of the rules matters, as the ALB will evaluate the rules in the order in which they are defined and the first rule that matches the incoming request will be used.

In conclusion, routing traffic from multiple domains to a single AWS ALB is a simple and efficient way to manage and distribute incoming traffic to your web applications. By setting rules based on the host header, you can ensure that the traffic from each domain is directed to the appropriate target group, providing a high level of control and flexibility for your web application.