When Nginx is receiving enough traffic and an upstream server closes prematurely the connection,
the proxy_next_upstream_tries proxy directive is ignored. If enough requests causing some connections to close prematurely
are sent, all upstreams can potentially be unavailable.
This seems to occur only when the connection is closed by the upstream server: for instance,if the application server returns a 500
response and proxy_next_upstream is set to http_500, Nginx behaves correctly.
docker compose up -d && docker compose ps
Wait for the the build and start of the app servers
docker compose exec nginx-test tail -f /var/log/nginx/myapp.access.log /var/log/nginx/myapp.error.log
curl "htpp://localhost:2222/ok -v
Response:
{"message":"ok"}%
Nginx logs:
==> /var/log/nginx/myapp.access.log <==
192.168.0.1 [01/Dec/2022:14:14:24 +0000] "GET /ok HTTP/1.1" 200 178 "-" 0.024
This request call the endpoint that closes the connection
curl "htpp://localhost:2222/kill -v
Response:
<html>
<head><title>502 Bad Gateway</title></head>
<body>
<center><h1>502 Bad Gateway</h1></center>
<hr><center>nginx</center>
</body>
</html>
Nginx logs:
==> /var/log/nginx/myapp.access.log <==
192.168.0.1 [01/Dec/2022:14:16:52 +0000] "GET /kill HTTP/1.1" 502 315 "-" 0.006
==> /var/log/nginx/myapp.error.log <==
2022/12/01 14:16:52 [error] 113#113: *17 upstream prematurely closed connection while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.0.1, server: myapp.com, request: "GET /kill HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://192.168.0.3:8080/kill", host: "localhost:2222"
2022/12/01 14:16:52 [error] 113#113: *17 upstream prematurely closed connection while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.0.1, server: myapp.com, request: "GET /kill HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://192.168.0.4:8080/kill", host: "localhost:2222"
As expected nginx follow the directive proxy_next_upstream_tries 2; and retries two upstreams servers.
If you make this call repeatedly, you will keep seeing the exact same message, which is the intended behavour
Generate some traffic on Nginx. The script is only calling the good endpoint.
docker run -v "$(pwd)"/load_test.js:/tmp/load_test.js grafana/k6 run /tmp/load_test.js
You should see a lot of 200 requests in the access.log but no errors in the error.log
curl "htpp://localhost:2222/kill -v
You should see 6 errors (one per upstream server), the proxy_next_upstream_tries is ignored:
==> /var/log/nginx/myapp.access.log <==
192.168.0.1 [01/Dec/2022:14:16:52 +0000] "GET /kill HTTP/1.1" 502 315 "-" 0.006
==> /var/log/nginx/myapp.error.log <==
2022/12/01 14:16:52 [error] 113#113: *17 upstream prematurely closed connection while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.0.1, server: myapp.com, request: "GET /kill HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://192.168.0.3:8080/kill", host: "localhost:2222"
2022/12/01 14:16:52 [error] 113#113: *17 upstream prematurely closed connection while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.0.1, server: myapp.com, request: "GET /kill HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://192.168.0.4:8080/kill", host: "localhost:2222"
2022/12/01 14:16:52 [error] 113#113: *17 upstream prematurely closed connection while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.0.1, server: myapp.com, request: "GET /kill HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://192.168.0.5:8080/kill", host: "localhost:2222"
2022/12/01 14:16:52 [error] 113#113: *17 upstream prematurely closed connection while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.0.1, server: myapp.com, request: "GET /kill HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://192.168.0.6:8080/kill", host: "localhost:2222"
2022/12/01 14:16:52 [error] 113#113: *17 upstream prematurely closed connection while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.0.1, server: myapp.com, request: "GET /kill HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://192.168.0.7:8080/kill", host: "localhost:2222"
2022/12/01 14:16:52 [error] 113#113: *17 upstream prematurely closed connection while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.0.1, server: myapp.com, request: "GET /kill HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://192.168.0.8:8080/kill", host: "localhost:2222"
If you repeat this command while nginx is under load, nginx will keep on retrying 6 times.
If too many requests causing a connection closed are sent, you will eventually run out of available upstreams for a period of time defined by fail_timeout=10s:
2022/12/01 15:12:19 [error] 237#237: *207 no live upstreams while connecting to upstream, client: 192.168.112.1, server: myapp.com, request: "GET /ok HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://backend_servers/ok", host: "host.docker.internal:2222"
The no live upstream is of course an expectable consequence.
At this point you can stop k6 and wait for an other 60s before calling again /kill. There will be only two error messages: the proxy_next_upstream_tries is again considered.
Nginx logs:
==> /var/log/nginx/myapp.access.log <==
192.168.0.1 [01/Dec/2022:14:16:52 +0000] "GET /kill HTTP/1.1" 502 315 "-" 0.006
==> /var/log/nginx/myapp.error.log <==
2022/12/01 14:16:52 [error] 113#113: *17 upstream prematurely closed connection while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.0.1, server: myapp.com, request: "GET /kill HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://192.168.0.3:8080/kill", host: "localhost:2222"
2022/12/01 14:16:52 [error] 113#113: *17 upstream prematurely closed connection while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.0.1, server: myapp.com, request: "GET /kill HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://192.168.0.4:8080/kill", host: "localhost:2222"
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