[users@httpd] RE: TCP SYN behavior and reverse proxy (mod_proxy)

[Prigge Scott <Pr...@JohnDeere.com>]

> Hello, don't know if this works or if you tried it already but here are some Environment Variables which could help.
> proxy-sendchunks or proxy-sendchunked or maybe proxy-initial-not-pooled.
> I changed the keep-alive timeout on the backend to the timeout of the frontend apache to minimize the "502 Bad Gateway" error.

Hi, thanks for your thoughts Michael. In fact, I have tried proxy-sendchunked. It seems to cause Apache to spool the POST data as it is being received - and that's great. Unfortunately the app can't handle chunked encoding, so that option is out. I've also tried proxy-initial-not-pooled, force-proxy-request-1.0, proxy-nokeepalive, and some others without any noticeable effect. Maybe I just haven't stumbled across the correct combination, though I am starting to suspect there is none.

I can understand what you are saying regarding the Keep-Alive timeout value. However the timeout threshold we are reaching is being imposed by the OS (Linux in this case), not by Apache. I know this because while the TCP connection with the app server is waiting for the POST data to be received, the app server is sending multiple SYN-ACKs in an attempt to get something from the webserver. There is an TCP kernel parameter you can adjust (sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_synack_retries=5) which controls how many TCP SYN-ACKs that will be sent during these conditions. And if I bump this number up, it causes the OS to keep the idle TCP connection open longer and the POST completes successfully.

But...that's just a workaround in my opinion. What I really want is for Apache to wait until it receives all of the POST data before it opens the TCP connection to the app server.


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