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...iling # it may be advisable to reorder these on a per-host basis # so "host1" does not connect to "host1_private" as its # first choice... server host1_private:8080 fail_timeout=0 backup; server host2_private:8080 fail_timeout=0 backup; server host3_private:8080 fail_timeout=0 backup; } The idea is to have the majority of requests will use the UNIX socket which is a bit faster than the TCP one. However, if _some_ of your machines start getting overloaded, nginx can failover to using TCP, likely on a different host which may be less loaded....