Hussein Nasser: HTTP Graceful shutdown | The Backend Engineering Show

In this episode, Hussein dives into why you’d want to gracefully close HTTP connections—whether to free up resources, finish pending requests or shut out rogue clients—and shows how it’s done in HTTP/1.1 using the Connection header versus HTTP/2’s GOAWAY frame. He also highlights the trade-offs of HTTP/2 multiplexing and walks through real-world Chromium code and issue links.

By breaking down each protocol’s shutdown handshake and timing nuances, you’ll learn how to minimize disruptions for in-flight requests and keep your backend behaving nicely under shutdown conditions.

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