[clug] force Apache to close connection on error

[Bob Edwards]

On 21/09/15 15:42, matt andrews wrote:
> On 21 September 2015 at 14:53, Bob Edwards <Robert.Edwards at anu.edu.au> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I am running a site with Nginx in front of Apache (actually in front
>> of lots of things, but am interested in Apache at the moment).
>>
>> The FOSS version of Nginx can do rudimentary fail-over if an "upstream"
>> (back-end) server is not responding.
>>
>> The commercial version of Nginx (Nginx Plus) can do fancier tricks like
>> detecting if the upstream server is responding with error code 500.
>>
>> Alas, if my site is "half-dead", Apache responds with error code 500
>> and my FOSS version of Nginx determines that as a valid response and so
>> keeps on sending requests to it.
>>
>> What I would like to do is get Apache to close the connection instead
>> of responding with error code 500. This probably breaks all kinds of
>> HTTP standards, but should suffice to trigger my Nginx to fail-over
>> to the backup server.
>>
>> Any ideas?
>>
>> cheers,
>>
>> Bob Edwards.
>
> Hi Bob
>
> nginx (non-Plus) should be perfectly capable of handling this via
> proxy_next_upstream rules with "http_500" or similar:
>
> http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_proxy_module.html#proxy_next_upstream
>
> Cheers,
>
> Matt.
>

Hey Matt - fantastic - just what I wanted. I wonder why I couldn't find
that earlier...

Works a treat.

cheers,

Bob Edwards.