Rate_limiting

Chapter 22: Rate Limiting & Load Balancing

Overview

Rate limiting protects your RPC nodes from abuse and ensures fair resource allocation.

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22.1 Why Rate Limit?

• Prevent DDoS attacks
• Protect node resources
• Ensure fair access
• Manage costs

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22.2 Geth Rate Limiting

# Enable rate limiting
geth \
  --http.ratelimit 1000 \
  --http.ratelimitburst 2000 \
  --ws.ratelimit 500 \
  --ws.ratelimitburst 1000

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22.3 Nginx Rate Limiting

http {
    # Define rate limit zone
    limit_req_zone $binary_remote_addr zone=api_limit:10m rate=100r/s;
    limit_req_zone $binary_remote_addr zone=write_limit:10m rate=10r/s;

    server {
        location / {
            # Apply rate limit
            limit_req zone=api_limit burst=200 nodelay;
        }

        location /eth_sendTransaction {
            limit_req zone=write_limit burst=50 nodelay;
        }
    }
}

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22.4 Load Balancing

HAProxy Configuration

frontend eth_rpc_https
    bind :443 ssl crt /etc/ssl/certs/server.pem
    default_backend geth_nodes

backend geth_nodes
    balance roundrobin
    option httpchk GET /health

    server geth1 10.0.0.1:8545 check inter 5s rise 2 fall 3
    server geth2 10.0.0.2:8545 check inter 5s rise 2 fall 3
    server geth3 10.0.0.3:8545 check inter 5s rise 2 fall 3

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Summary

• Rate limit at application level (Geth)
• Use Nginx for additional protection
• Load balance across multiple nodes

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Last Updated: 2026-02-20