api-gateway

Incremental implementation of a toy API-gateway.

What is an API Gateway?

An API Gateway is a highly-concurrent reverse proxy. It intercepts client requests to improve security, performance, & reliability. Instead of individual services duplicating logic for authentication, rate limiting, & load balancing, the Gateway abstracts those concerns away.

What is this?

Our toy API Gateway will evolve from a simple pass-through implementation to a slightly more nuanced model.

Each folder corresponds to a topic discussed and includes a small overview of the addition, why it is beneficial, and the current high-level architecture of what has been built. Hopefully, these weekly overviews will highlight architectural choices, trade-offs, & nuances.

Prereqs

• Python 3.12+
• WSL (Windows only): install via wsl --install in PowerShell to use the Makefile
• REST Client (VS Code) extension for clickable "Send Request" buttons in demo.http files
• See requirements.txt for python dependencies

Getting Started

git clone https://github.com/diljit22/api-gateway.git
cd api-gateway                  # navigate to the dir
python3 -m venv venv            # create virtual environment
source venv/bin/activate        # activate venv
pip install -r requirements.txt # install python deps

Workflow

make help              # list all available commands

make pass-through      # start backends + dict-based gateway
make trie              # start backends + radix-trie gateway
make trie-bench        # benchmark: dict scan vs trie lookup

make lb                # start 6 backends + load-balanced gateway
make lb-bench          # benchmark: distribution, stability, least-conn
make lb-chaos          # automated chaos demo (starts its own servers)

make stop-all          # kill all running processes

NB: Always run make stop-all before switching phases to prevent port conflicts.

Progress

Folder	What it adds	Status
services	dummy backends	done
pass_through	basic dict routing	done
trie_routing	radix-trie router	done
load_balancing	const hash + vnode	done
req_chanelling	.............	todo
cache_layer	.............	todo
authentication	.............	todo
rate_limiting	.............	todo