Ever wondered how servers say “bye” without leaving your requests hanging? Graceful shutdown lets your backend send a polite notice—Connection: close in HTTP/1.1 or a GOAWAY frame in HTTP/2—so both sides can finish up work, free resources, and avoid rogue clients. It’s all about wrapping up in-flight requests cleanly, preventing leaks, and keeping your service reliable.
In this Backend Engineering Show episode, Hussein Nasser breaks down the why and how, compares the latency and complexity trade-offs between HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2, and even walks through Chromium’s client socket code and issue trackers. By the end, you’ll know exactly when and how to implement a smooth, hassle-free shutdown for your HTTP services.
Watch on YouTube
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