Traefik stuck when used as frontend for a streaming API

[git-oca]

Hi, I have a service that streams potentially large responses, in a streaming fashion.
When I put traefik (v1.0.1) in front of my service, the streaming API doesn't seems to reply anymore.

My real use case is to do streaming on a SolR server that may have very large result-set.
but this small service (Python/Flask) will help to reproduce the problem easily :

from flask import Response
from flask import Flask
app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/numbers')
def generate_route():
    def generate():
        a = 0
        while True :
            yield(str(a) + "\n")
            a = a + 1
    return Response(generate(), mimetype='text/plain')

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run(host='0.0.0.0', port=8080)

A call to this '/numbers' API will generate an infinite stream of numbers.
This command, while doing a broken pipe, will however still reply and print number 0 to 9 :

curl -s localhost:8080/numbers | head -n 10
0
1
2
3
...

When I'm using traefik as a reverse proxy to redirect call on port 80 to 8080, the '/numbers' API doesn't reply anymore.

curl -s localhost/numbers | head -n 10

(no response here...)

So is there anything that can be done about that ?
Thanks

Olivier

[emilevauge]

@git-oca currently, traefik supports streaming if mime type is set to text/event-stream.

[git-oca]

Thanks for your reply Emile, Unfortunately, I have got exactly the same result using the "text/event-stream" mime type.

so without traefik, I got the numbers (I used -i to be sure that the content type 'text/event-stream' was correct):

curl -i localhost:8085/numbers | head -n 10
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 0HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Content-Type: text/event-stream; charset=utf-8
Connection: close
Server: Werkzeug/0.11.5 Python/2.7.6
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 08:51:04 GMT

0
1
2
3

but with traefik as frontend, curl doesn't show up any number and seems stuck.

curl -i localhost/numbers | head -n 10
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 --:--:-- 0:00:04 --:--:-- 0
(nothing...)

but I can see on the python server log that it is actually writing the response.

[git-oca]

Not sure if this helps, but just did a quick try with "oxy" alone as a reverse proxy and the streaming went fine... but still unable to get it working with traefik

package main
import (
  "net/http"
  "github.com/vulcand/oxy/forward"
  "github.com/vulcand/oxy/testutils"
  )


func main() {
  // Forwards incoming requests to whatever location URL points to, adds proper forwarding headers
  fwd, _ := forward.New()

  redirect := http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, req *http.Request) {
      // let us forward this request to another server
          req.URL = testutils.ParseURI("http://localhost:8085")
          fwd.ServeHTTP(w, req)
  })

  // that's it! our reverse proxy is ready!
  s := &http.Server{
    Addr:           ":8080",
    Handler:        redirect,
  }
  s.ListenAndServe()
}

[emilevauge]

@git-oca, this PR containous/oxy#9 fixed Mime Type parsing in containous/oxy. I will integrate it into traefik soon.
I don't get why it worked with vulcand/oxy, we had to patch it in the fork containous/oxy to add streaming support...

[git-oca]

Fantastic ! thank you very much ! 👍

[git-oca]

Hi Emile,
I just took those modifications (PR containous/oxy#9), and did a quick build of traefik, and unfortunately, the problem is still the same even with these modifications. Any idea ?

[git-oca]

In oxy/forward/responseflusher.go, in

func (wf *responseFlusher) Flush() {
    flusher, ok := wf.ResponseWriter.(http.Flusher)
    if ok {
        flusher.Flush()
    }
}

ok seems to be always false when I'm streaming... unfortunately I don't know that much of Go... so I can't help that much more... désolé

[emilevauge]

@git-oca you mean you built traefik using the commit 4298f24d572dc554eb984f2ffdf6bdd54d4bd613 of containous/oxy right ?
This is really weird...
Can you paste your toml file ?

[git-oca]

I just cloned the master of traefik and modified oxy files manualy

Le 29 juil. 2016 à 17:28, Emile Vauge notifications@github.com a écrit :

@git-oca you mean you build traefik using the commit 4298f24d572dc554eb984f2ffdf6bdd54d4bd613 of containous/oxy right ?
This is really weird...
Can you paste your toml file ?

—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

[git-oca]

I will post my toml by next week. I can also provide a docker image to help reproduce the problem

Le 29 juil. 2016 à 17:28, Emile Vauge notifications@github.com a écrit :

@git-oca you mean you build traefik using the commit 4298f24d572dc554eb984f2ffdf6bdd54d4bd613 of containous/oxy right ?
This is really weird...
Can you paste your toml file ?

—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

[git-oca]

So here is my traefik.toml

graceTimeOut = 10

logLevel = "WARN"

ProvidersThrottleDuration = 2

MaxIdleConnsPerHost = 0

defaultEntryPoints = ["http"]


 [entryPoints]
   [entryPoints.http]
   address = ":80"

[retry]

attempts = 10

[file]

filename = "rules.toml"

watch = true

and this is rules.toml

[frontends]
  [frontends.frontend1]
  backend = "backend1"
[backends]
  [backends.backend1]
    [backends.backend1.LoadBalancer]
    method = "wrr"
      [backends.backend1.servers.server1]
        url = "http://localhost:8085"
        weight = 1

[git-oca]

I just pushed on dockerhub an image that may help to reproduce the problem.
The image is called ocarnal/test-traefik-streaming
The image is built on golang 1.6.3 with a few more stuff (python flask framework, vim, glide)

every thing for testing is in the /oca folder.
traefik is built from /go/src/github.com/containous/traefik (cloned from master)
Before building, I modified these files (from the source available here containous/oxy@3a329f9 ):
/go/src/github.com/containous/traefik/vendor/github.com/vulcand/oxy/forward/fwd.go
/go/src/github.com/containous/traefik/vendor/github.com/vulcand/oxy/utils/netutils.go
/go/src/github.com/containous/traefik/vendor/github.com/vulcand/oxy/utils/netutils_test.go
I also added a "NO FLUSH" trace in that file :
/go/src/github.com/containous/traefik/vendor/github.com/vulcand/oxy/forward/responseflusher.go

Now here are the steps to reproduce the problem.

Let's first start the container
docker run -d -it ocarnal/test-traefik-streaming
I got id f167dc33a2cd

You will need a few shell to start all the process. so I use docker exec -it f167dc33a2cd /bin/bash to start them
Here we go :

Step 1 : starting the python web app that will do the streaming
docker@oca:~$ docker exec -it f167dc33a2cd /bin/bash
root@f167dc33a2cd:/go# cd /oca
root@f167dc33a2cd:/oca# python server.py (just edit server.py to see the http routes )

• Running on http://0.0.0.0:8085/ (Press CTRL+C to quit)

Step 2: starting traefik to redirect 80 to 8085
docker@oca:~$ docker exec -it f167dc33a2cd /bin/bash
root@f167dc33a2cd:/go# cd /oca
root@f167dc33a2cd:/oca# ./traefik -d -c traefik.toml
INFO[2016-08-02T09:15:39Z] Traefik version dev built on I don't remember exactly
INFO[2016-08-02T09:15:39Z] Using TOML configuration file /oca/traefik.toml
...
...

Step 3 : testing

docker@oca:~$ docker exec -it f167dc33a2cd /bin/bash
root@f167dc33a2cd:/go# curl localhost:8085/hello
Hello

root@f167dc33a2cd:/go# curl localhost:8085/numbers | head -n 10
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 1254 0 1254 0 0 9200 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 91530
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
curl: (23) Failed writing body (2 != 5)
root@f167dc33a2cd:/go#

Ok, without using a proxy, we got our numbers.
NOTE that this kills the python server... so in the shell you used for step 1, restart the server with "python server.py"

Now try with traefik as a reverse proxy :
root@f167dc33a2cd:/go# curl localhost/numbers | head -n 10
this will never complete...
And have a look on the Step 1 shell, you will the python server printing lot's of numbers...
so just ctrl-c to stop the server.
also in the traefik shell you should see ("NO FLUSH"), A trace that I added in /go/src/github.com/containous/traefik/vendor/github.com/vulcand/oxy/forward/responseflusher.go

Now if you :

• restart the python server again
• kill the trafik process
• start /oca/oxy-test instead (that is small standalone oxy proxy, see source in /go/src/oxy-test/)
• and curl localhost/numbers | head -n 10

you should see the numbers...

[emilevauge]

@git-oca Could you try using Docker image containous/traefik:pr-584 ?

[git-oca]

I copied the binary traefik file of "containous/traefik:pr-584" to my container, did the test again and got the same result.

root@79ee253dd695:/oca# ./traefik version
Version: 2c41176
Codename: reblochon
Go version: go1.6.2
Built: 2016-08-02_10:39:47AM
OS/Arch: linux/amd64

[git-oca]

I just put a few trace in each traefik/middlewares, in the ServeHTTP function.
like this :

func (retry *Retry) ServeHTTP(rw http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
   _,ok := rw.(http.Flusher)
   fmt.Println("retry.go, has flusher : ",ok)
   ...
}

and here is what I got :

handlerSwitcher.go, has flusher : true
retry.go, has flusher : true
saveBackend.go, has flusher : false

so it seems that the RequestWriter can no longer be typed as a http.Flusher after the "retry" middleware...

[git-oca]

very dirty, but just for a quick test, in retry.go, I replaced
retry.next.ServeHTTP(recorder, r) just by retry.next.ServeHTTP(rw, r)
and that change make the streaming working... (but I got this in the log... "2016/08/03 12:25:21 server.go:2161: http: multiple response.WriteHeader calls")

[emilevauge]

@git-oca: ouch, I think I got it... The ResponseRecorder doesn't implement http.Flusher.
I'll create a PR with the fix.
Thanks a lot for investigating on this 👍

[emilevauge]

@git-oca: PR made #592 ;)

[git-oca]

Just tested that, but adding a Flush seems to be not enough...
I did try to add this :

func (rw *ResponseRecorder) Flush()  {
   if fl,ok := rw.responseWriter.(http.Flusher); ok {
     fl.Flush()
   }
}

but still no answer... so I think we should change Write too... cause it tries to copy to a buffer and that will never end...

[git-oca]

but we are close ;)

[git-oca]

just tested PR 592 , but it's not enough

[emilevauge]

Added a call to Flush() in ResponseRecorder.Write() but it's kind of hacky...
Edit: still doesn't work... I need to investigate another solution with retry.

[git-oca]

defer rw.Flush() never get called...
as rw.Body.Write(buf) is on an infinite stream... not sure what's the best way here... maybe something like in oxy/fwd.go using io.Copy

[emilevauge]

In fact defer rw.Flush() is not needed, ResponseRecorder.Flush() is being called.
The issue is in Retry.ServeHTTP() that doesn't copy the response back from the ResponseRecorder.

[git-oca]

ok got it, ResponseRecorder.Flush() is actually called...

[git-oca]

Funny way to learn GO BTW ;)

[emilevauge]

@git-oca I just updated the PR, if you want to test :)

[git-oca]

@emilevauge 💯 That's it ! streaming is working fine with this version ! Thank you very much !

I just noticed that log after the request completed, but that don't seems to cause trouble :

2016/08/04` 06:15:15 server.go:2161: http: multiple response.WriteHeader calls

Also something I don't care at all but that I noticed while looking in the code... so just to let you know, in server.go, there is an import of "github.com/codegangsta/negroni" that should now be "github.com/urfave/negroni" according to what they say on the project main page :

Notice: This is the library formerly known as github.com/codegangsta/negroni -- Github will automatically redirect requests to this repository, but we recommend updating your references for clarity.

So thanks again ! Traefik is now replacing haproxy in our mesos cluster here in the localization team at Autodesk.

[emilevauge]

I just noticed that log after the request completed, but that don't seems to cause trouble :

2016/08/04` 06:15:15 server.go:2161: http: multiple response.WriteHeader calls

Yeah, I know, but it will be difficult to avoid that here as response.WriteHeader is called during Write in standard library :'(

Also something I don't care at all but that I noticed while looking in the code... so just to let you know, in server.go, there is an import of "github.com/codegangsta/negroni" that should now be "github.com/urfave/negroni" according to what they say on the project main page :

Notice: This is the library formerly known as github.com/codegangsta/negroni -- Github will automatically redirect requests to this repository, but we recommend updating your references for clarity.

I will change that later, not in a bug fix release ;)