HTTP Graceful Shutdown: The Backend Engineering Show

Ever wondered how backends wrap up HTTP connections without leaving clients hanging or hogging resources? In this episode Hussein Nasser dives into why you might need to shut down a connection gracefully, walks through how HTTP/1.1 uses the Connection header to drain pending requests, and then explores HTTP/2’s GOAWAY frame—including its performance trade-offs and implementation quirks.

You’ll get clear timestamps for each section, links to Chromium’s source and issue tracker, plus bonus courses and resources if you want to level up your backend or networking game. Enjoy!

Watch on YouTube