[rhymenoceros]

This is an improvement but it still seems like HAProxy is offloading a small (but annoying) amount of responsibility to users when handling restart requests. You still have to track the existing process' PID and give it to the new process, give the new process the same "-x [socket_file]" argument, and make sure the new process comes up before making any subsequent changes to the HAProxy config file.

Does HAProxy have any plans to wrap this process juggling to make things as stupidly easy as nginx's reload behavior?

[rogerdonut]

The current method integrates with both init scripts and systemd. You shouldn't need to manually pass any of that information. Also, the -x option is not required if you are running HAProxy in master/worker mode in which case sending a SIGUSR2 to the master process would be sufficient. With that said, we do have further improvements planned for an upcoming release. Stay tuned :)