Linode NodeBalancer Vs Nginx - nginx

Question

I have a NodeBalancer created to route my request on Tomcat server via HTTP. I see that NodeBalancer is doing good but now I have to install Nginx server to server static contact and as well as reverse proxy to redirect my http traffic to HTTPS.
I have a below scenario--
User-----via http---->NodeBalncer(http:80) ---->Nginx--->Redirect to HTTPS---->NodeBalancer(https:443)------> Tomcat on HTTP:8080
Below is sample flow
1) User send a request using HTTP:80
2) NodeBalancer received request on HTTP:80 and forward to Nginx
3) Nginx redirect request to HTTPS
4) Now NodeBalancer received request on HTTPS:443 and forward to Serving Tomcat on HTTP:8080 after terminating SSL on NodeBalancer.
Now, if I need to serve all static content like (images/|img/|javascript/|js/|css/|stylesheets/) then before forwarding all HTTPS request via NodeBalance to serving Tomcat I need to forward them via Nginx to serve static content.
I can do it via pointing NodeBalncer to Nginx but then what about Tomcat clustering because NodeBalancer will always forward all HTTPS request to Nginx and I have to maintain session stickiness using Nginx which is pretty much like LoadBalancing via Nginx. I see everything can be done via Nginx server itself. Instead of terminating all user request to NodeBalancer I can directly use Nginx.
I did execute some scenarios by installing Nginx and redirecting HTTP to HTTPS and independently serving static content also but I stuck with provided NodeBalancer to serve my purpose. I am planing to drop Linode NodeBalncer and use Nginx as LoadBalancer as well as service static content.
Looking some expert advise/comments on this or suggest me if my approach is wrong.

Answer 1

Serving the static content and the redirect to https are two different issues. Your general approach sounds fine. I personally would do everything using Nginx and lose the NodeBalancer but that's for a personal website. If this is for business then you need to consider monitoring etc and NodeBalancer might provide some features you want to keep.
Send all traffic from NodeBalancer to Nginx and use Nginx as both the load balancer and to terminate all SSL traffic. Heres a simple examples that terminates SSL and serves images. In this case we're routing all traffic to the tomcat upstream server on port 80 which is load balanced using IP hash so you get sticky sessions. You would be adding a load balancer here.
upstream tomcat {
ip_hash;
server 192.168.1.1:80;
server 192.168.1.2:80;
server 192.168.1.3:80;
}
server {
listen 443;
server_name www.example.org;
ssl on;
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.org/fullchain.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.org/privkey.pem;
location / {
proxy_cache example_cache;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
proxy_set_header Host www.example.org:80;
proxy_pass_request_headers on;
proxy_pass http://tomcat;
}
location /images/ {
root /var/www/images/;
autoindex off;
}
}
To achieve sticky sessions you have several options that you need to read up on. IP load balancing is probably the simplest to setup.