Hussein Nasser: HTTP Graceful shutdown | The Backend Engineering Show

Ever wondered how to close HTTP connections without dropping clients? In this Backend Engineering Show episode, Hussein walks you through why graceful shutdowns matter, how HTTP/1.1 uses the Connection header to let in-flight requests finish, and what happens when you need to cut connections to free up resources or fend off bad actors.

He then dives into HTTP/2’s GOAWAY frame—breaking down the performance cost of multiplexing, showing you real-world Chromium socket code, and sharing best practices so your backends can say “see you later” instead of “goodbye.” Timestamps make it easy to jump to the bits you care about most.

Watch on YouTube