title: What is the max value that I can set for weight in NGINX upstream server configuration?
body: <p>When configuring NGINX with multiple server entries, one can configure a round-robin algorithm for distributing load. 
  NGINX offers the weight to indicate how weight is distributed. For ex.:</p>
  
  <pre><code>upstream backend {
   server backend1.example.com       weight=5;
   server backend2.example.com:8080  weight=1;
  
  }
  server {
      location / {
          proxy_pass http://backend;
      }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Question is: What is the maximum value assignable to weight?</p>
  
  <p>My problem is that I have encountered a configuration with 2 server entries one with a weight value of 2000000000 (2 billion) and one with a value of 1. The intention was to have all traffic directed on the first server as temporarily the second one was down. However after far less than 2 bil requests users got error because they were directed to the second server.</p>