
Graceful shutdown in HTTP
From The Backend Engineering Show with Hussein Nasser by Hussein Nasser
October 17, 2025 · 26 min
About this episode
This episode discusses the importance of graceful shutdowns in HTTP connections to manage resources and prevent issues.
There are cases where the backend may need to close the connection to prevent unexpected situations, prevent bad actors or simply just free up resources. Closing a connection gracefully allows clients and backends to clean up and finish any pending requests. In this episode of the backend engineering show I discuss graceful connections in both HTTP/1.1 via the connection header and HTTP/2 via the GOAWAY frame. 0:00 Intro 4:58 Why shutdown connection? 6:46 HTTP/1.1 Graceful shutdown 12:26 Cost of HTTP/2 17:40 HTTP/2 GoAWAY frame 23:40 Summary Links https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVKPrDrEwTI&t=1s https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/net/%2B/master/socket/client_socket_pool_manager.cc#76 https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40555364 https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40501721
People in this episode
Host: Hussein Nasser
Topics covered
- graceful shutdown
- HTTP connections
- backend engineering
- HTTP/1.1
- HTTP/2
- GOAWAY frame
Keywords
- graceful shutdown
- HTTP/1.1
- HTTP/2
- GOAWAY frame
- backend connections
- connection header
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, Chromium
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