diff --git a/doc/design/assistant/blog/day_209__The_Bug.mdwn b/doc/design/assistant/blog/day_209__The_Bug.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..b2e87fd8fd --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/design/assistant/blog/day_209__The_Bug.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +> And so we waited. Tick-tock, blink-blink, thirty seconds stretched +> themselves out one by one, a hole in human experience. -- The Bug + +I *think* I've managed to fully track down the [[webapp_hang]]. It is, +apparently, a bug in the Warp web server's code intended to protect against +the [Slowloris](http://ha.ckers.org/slowloris/) attack. It assumes, +incorrectly, that a web browser won't reuse a connection it's left idle for +30 seconds. Some bad error handling keeps a connection open with no thread +to service it, leading to the hang. + + +Have put a 30 minute timeout into place as a workaround, and, unless +a web browser sits on an idle connection for a full 30 minutes and then +tries to reuse it, this should be sufficient. + +I was chasing that bug, quietly, for 6 months. Would see it now and +then, but not be able to reproduce it or get anywhere with analysis. +I had nearly given up. If you enjoy stories like that, read Ellen +Ullman's excellent book The Bug. + +> To discover that between the blinks of the machine’s shuttered eye—going +> on without pause or cease; simulated, imagined, but still not caught—was +> life.