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I am trying to understand what is happening with the following message in our Apache 2.2 error_log:

Wed May 18 21:03:29 2011] [error] [client 172.20.10.10] (70007)The timeout specified has expired: proxy: error reading status line from remote server super-load1-ga.test.com, referer: https://tester2.test.com/boom/ga/inside.asp

We are running Apache 2.2 with mod_proxy. Is this Apache timing out the request related to its 5 min TimeOut value in the httpd.conf? (Meaning it does not recieve a response from the remote server in 5 min.) Or is this simply a response from the remote server saying that it cannot handle the connection?

Apache quickly runs out of its MaxClients around the time I see this error.

Quick example of Proxy entry:

ProxyPass /boom/ga https://super-load1-ga.test.com
ProxyPassReverse /boom/ga https://super-load1-ga.test.com
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2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

It sounds like your server at htts://super-load1-ga.test.com is taking too long to respond.

In that scenario, if it just sits there then the Apache process is going to wait for it. That process is essentially blocked, i.e. cannot do anything else. If you don't time out quick enough, you're going to run out of Apache processes and hit MaxClients which seems too all make sense.

You should have logs on the super-load1-ga.test.com site to see how long requests are taking, they must be taking an age.

You could potentially shorten the timeout on the ProxyPass connection

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_proxy.html#workers

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Thanks for the great response Phil. So you think this is hitting the main httpd.conf TimeOut value of 5 min and Apache is timing out the session? Because I don't have a proxy specific timeout set it would default. On the Proxy timeout suggestion do you think I should use the ProxyTimeout variable or the ProxySet command? (ProxySet connectiontimeout=5 timeout=30 ) – roacha May 21 '11 at 0:22
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You increase the timeout in the ProxyPass directive:

ProxyPass /boom/ga https://super-load1-ga.test.com connectiontimeout=300 timeout=300

Timeout values are in seconds.

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