WWW Form Bug Report: "mod_proxy does not close connections" on FreeBSD (fwd)

[Rob Hartill <ro...@imdb.com>]

----- Forwarded message from newton@atdot.dotat.org -----

Message-Id: <19...@taz.hyperreal.com>
From: newton@atdot.dotat.org
To: apache-bugs%apache.org@organic.com
Date: Wed Oct 30  2:18:25 1996
Subject: WWW Form Bug Report: "mod_proxy does not close connections" on FreeBSD

Submitter: newton@atdot.dotat.org
Operating system: FreeBSD, version: 2.2-960801-SNAP
Version of Apache Used: 1.1.1
Extra Modules used: mod_proxy
URL exhibiting problem: 

Symptoms:
--
When user cancels data transfer in browser which 
is using Apache as a proxy, Apache doesn't
always close the corresponding proxied
connection to the remote HTTP server.  Indeed,
Apache will attempt to continue to download 
data from the URL in question.

This behaviour can be expensive in .au : Many sites
pay by the megabyte for their Internet connectivity,
and do not want cancelled data transfers to end
up on their bills!
--

Backtrace:
--

--

----- End of forwarded message from newton@atdot.dotat.org -----

-- 
Rob Hartill (robh@imdb.com)    
http://www.imdb.com/  ... why wait for a clear night to see the stars?.

Re: WWW Form Bug Report: "mod_proxy does not close connections" on FreeBSD (fwd)

[David Robinson <dr...@esi.co.uk>]

On Wed, 30 Oct 1996, Rob Hartill wrote:

> ----- Forwarded message from newton@atdot.dotat.org -----
> 
> Message-Id: <19...@taz.hyperreal.com>
> From: newton@atdot.dotat.org
> To: apache-bugs%apache.org@organic.com
> Date: Wed Oct 30  2:18:25 1996
> Subject: WWW Form Bug Report: "mod_proxy does not close connections" on FreeBSD
> 
> Submitter: newton@atdot.dotat.org
> Operating system: FreeBSD, version: 2.2-960801-SNAP
> Version of Apache Used: 1.1.1
> Extra Modules used: mod_proxy
> URL exhibiting problem: 
> 
> Symptoms:
> --
> When user cancels data transfer in browser which 
> is using Apache as a proxy, Apache doesn't
> always close the corresponding proxied
> connection to the remote HTTP server.  Indeed,
> Apache will attempt to continue to download 
> data from the URL in question.
> 
> This behaviour can be expensive in .au : Many sites
> pay by the megabyte for their Internet connectivity,
> and do not want cancelled data transfers to end
> up on their bills!

I don't recall whether I designed it that way, but this behaviour
is useful for a caching proxy, in that it may increase the cache hit rate.

I'm told that the CERN proxy behaves this way, and that its users rely on 
this. A user will connect to proxy and try to access a document from a slow 
server. When it is clear that the document will take ages to fetch, the user
disconnects from the proxy, and returns five minutes later in the hope
of finding the document to be now cached by the proxy.


 David.