There are cases where the backend may need to close the connection to prevent unexpected situations, prevent bad actors or simply just free up resources. Closing a connection gracefully allows clients and backends to clean up and finish any pending requests. 

In this episode of the backend engineering show I discuss graceful connections in both HTTP/1.1 via the connection header and HTTP/2 via the GOAWAY frame. 

• 0:00 Intro
• 4:58 Why shutdown connection? 
• 6:46 HTTP/1.1 Graceful shutdown
• 12:26 Cost of HTTP/2 
• 17:40 HTTP/2 GoAWAY frame
• 23:40 Summary

Links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVKPrDrEwTI&t=1s 

https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/net/%2B/master/socket/client_socket_pool_manager.cc#76

https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40555364

https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40501721