Nginx behind a reverse proxy sending 499

ppwm nginx-forum at nginx.us
Sat Jan 10 15:16:12 UTC 2015


We have a Java based reverse proxy(developed in-house) which is talking to
Nginx which is a proxy_pass for gunicorn server(python/django). The HTTP
request flows from Java reverse proxy (JRPxy) to nginx to gunicorn. All
these servers are running on the same machine.

Previously JRPxy was sending Connection: keep-alive to nginx to reuse the
connections. However we decided to instead send Connection: close header and
use a new connection for every request. Since we made this change we see
nginx returning 499  status code.

I debugged the JRPxy at my end. I see that each time we write the request
headers & body and the very next moment we try to read nginx response we get
0 (no bytes) or -1(eof) as the number of bytes read. When we get 0 we
eventually get -1 subsequently (EOF after reading no bytes).

>From the perspective of code, we do Socket.shutdownOutput()
(http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/net/Socket.html#shutdownOutput%28%29)
each time we send Connection:close header. In Java's terms it indicates to
the remote socket that it is done sending data
(http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15206605/purpose-of-socket-shutdownoutput).
If I comment this line alone and still sending the Connection:close header,
I get valid 200 OK response.

I have caputred the netstat output  to see the connection state. When we do
Socket.shutdownOutput() we see TIME_WAIT from nginx's end indicating that
nginx initiated the socket close and is now waiting for an ACK from JRPxy.

------------------------------------------------------------
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 127.0.0.1:8888          127.0.0.1:47342        
TIME_WAIT   -                timewait (59.17/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 127.0.0.1:8888          127.0.0.1:47342        
TIME_WAIT   -                timewait (58.14/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 127.0.0.1:8888          127.0.0.1:47342        
TIME_WAIT   -                timewait (57.12/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 127.0.0.1:8888          127.0.0.1:47342        
TIME_WAIT   -                timewait (56.09/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 127.0.0.1:8888          127.0.0.1:47342        
TIME_WAIT   -                timewait (55.07/0/0)
------------------------------------------------------------

However if I comment the Socket.shutdownOutput() I see the netstat output in
reverse way. This time JRPxy is in TIME_WAIT state, indicating it initiated
the socket close.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 127.0.0.1:47379         127.0.0.1:8888         
TIME_WAIT   -                timewait (59.59/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 127.0.0.1:47379         127.0.0.1:8888         
TIME_WAIT   -                timewait (58.57/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 127.0.0.1:47379         127.0.0.1:8888         
TIME_WAIT   -                timewait (57.54/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 127.0.0.1:47385         127.0.0.1:8888         
TIME_WAIT   -                timewait (59.87/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 127.0.0.1:47379         127.0.0.1:8888         
TIME_WAIT   -                timewait (56.52/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 :::8888                 :::*                    LISTEN  
   12156/docker-proxy off (0.00/0/0)
tcp6       0      0 127.0.0.1:47385         127.0.0.1:8888         
TIME_WAIT   -                timewait (58.85/0/0)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

By any chance is Socket.shutdownOutput() indicating to nginx that it is
closing the connection and hence nginx is sending 499? If that is true then
should nginx treat this as half-close and still send back the data?

My other assumption is that nginx is responding very quickly and closing the
socket immediately even before JRPxy gets a chance to read from the socket.
This is less likely as there are delays due to gunicorn processing.

Posted at Nginx Forum: http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,256028,256028#msg-256028



More information about the nginx mailing list