Http/2 connection closing

According to the Gatling documentation when http/2 scenario starts connections should be opened like in http/1 scenario: multiple connections for multiple requests. Unused connections should be closed in http.pooledConnectionIdleTimeout when remote server uses http2 protocol.
In my test nothing was happen: connections count did not decrease at all.
Tested Gatling versions: 3.9.5, 3.10.3
Here is the simple way to reproduce:

For Gatling

class LocalHttp2Simulation extends Simulation {
private val injectionSteps = Seq(rampConcurrentUsers(0) to (4) during (1000 seconds),
      constantConcurrentUsers(4) during (1000 seconds)
    )
val localHttp2Request: ChainBuilder = {
        exec(
          http("LocalHttp2Request")
              .get("/")
              .body(StringBody("BODY"))
        )
private val scenario = scenario("LocalHttp2Scenario")
      .forever {
        localHttp2Request
            .pace(10 seconds)
      }
setUp(
scenario.inject(injectionSteps)
        .protocols(
          httpProtocol(url = "https://127.0.0.1:443")
              .maxConnectionsPerHost(10)
              .connectionHeader("keep-alive")
              .enableHttp2
        )
)
}

And for http2 server (Kotlin):

object Http2Server {
  private val logger: Logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(Http2Server::class.java)


  @Throws(Exception::class)
  @JvmStatic
  fun main(args: Array<String>) {
    Security.addProvider(BouncyCastleProvider())

    val channelCounter = AtomicInteger(0)

    val sslCtx = createServerSslContext()
    val group: EventLoopGroup = NioEventLoopGroup()
    try {
      val b = ServerBootstrap()
      b.option(ChannelOption.SO_BACKLOG, 1024)
      b.group(group)
        .channel(NioServerSocketChannel::class.java)
        .handler(LoggingHandler(LogLevel.INFO))
        .childHandler(
          object : ChannelInitializer<SocketChannel>() {
            @Throws(Exception::class)
            override fun initChannel(ch: SocketChannel) {
              logger.info("Current connections count = [${channelCounter.incrementAndGet()}]")
              ch.pipeline().addLast(sslCtx.newHandler(ch.alloc()), getServerAPNHandler(channelCounter))
            }
          }
        )
      val ch: Channel = b.bind(443)
        .sync()
        .channel()
      logger.info("HTTP/2 Server is listening on https://127.0.0.1:443/")
      ch.closeFuture()
        .sync()
    } finally {
      group.shutdownGracefully()
    }
  }
}

object Http2Util {
 
  private fun generateCertificate(kp: KeyPair): X509Certificate? {
    val start = Instant.now()
    val stop = start.plus(Duration.ofDays(365))
    val cert = X509V3CertificateGenerator()
    cert.setSerialNumber(BigInteger.valueOf(1))
    cert.setSubjectDN(X509Principal("CN=localhost"))
    cert.setIssuerDN(X509Principal("CN=localhost"))
    cert.setPublicKey(kp.public)
    cert.setNotBefore(Date.from(start))
    cert.setNotAfter(Date.from(stop))
    cert.setSignatureAlgorithm("SHA1WithRSAEncryption")
    val signingKey: PrivateKey = kp.private
    return cert.generate(signingKey, "BC")
  }

  fun createServerSslContext(): SslContext {
    val kpg = KeyPairGenerator.getInstance("RSA")
    kpg.initialize(4096)
    val kp = kpg.generateKeyPair()
    val ssc = generateCertificate(kp)
    return SslContextBuilder.forServer(kp.private, ssc)
      .sslProvider(SslProvider.JDK)
      .ciphers(Http2SecurityUtil.CIPHERS, SupportedCipherSuiteFilter.INSTANCE)
      .applicationProtocolConfig(
        ApplicationProtocolConfig(
          Protocol.ALPN,
          SelectorFailureBehavior.NO_ADVERTISE,
          SelectedListenerFailureBehavior.ACCEPT,
          ApplicationProtocolNames.HTTP_2,
        ),
      )
      .build()
  }

  fun getServerAPNHandler(channelCounter: AtomicInteger): ApplicationProtocolNegotiationHandler {
    return object : ApplicationProtocolNegotiationHandler(ApplicationProtocolNames.HTTP_2) {
      override fun configurePipeline(ctx: ChannelHandlerContext, protocol: String) {
        if (ApplicationProtocolNames.HTTP_2 == protocol) {
          ctx.pipeline()
            .addLast(
              Http2FrameCodecBuilder.forServer().build(),
              Http2ServerResponseHandler(channelCounter),
            )
          return
        }
        throw IllegalStateException("Protocol [$protocol] not supported")
      }
    }
  }
}

@Sharable
class Http2ServerResponseHandler(
  val channelCounter: AtomicInteger
) : ChannelDuplexHandler() {

  @Throws(Exception::class)
  override fun channelRead(ctx: ChannelHandlerContext, msg: Any) {
    if (msg is Http2HeadersFrame) {
      if (!msg.isEndStream) {
        val content = ctx.alloc()
          .buffer()
        try {
          content.writeBytes(RESPONSE_BYTES.duplicate())
          val headers = DefaultHttp2Headers().status(HttpResponseStatus.OK.codeAsText())
          ctx.write(DefaultHttp2HeadersFrame(headers).stream(msg.stream()))
          ctx.writeAndFlush(DefaultHttp2DataFrame(content, true).stream(msg.stream()))
        } finally {
          content.clear()
        }
      }
    } else {
      super.channelRead(ctx, msg)
    }
  }

  @Throws(Exception::class)
  override fun channelReadComplete(ctx: ChannelHandlerContext) {
    ctx.flush()
  }

  override fun disconnect(ctx: ChannelHandlerContext?, promise: ChannelPromise?) {
    logger.info("Established connections count = [${channelCounter.decrementAndGet()}")
    super.disconnect(ctx, promise)
  }

  override fun channelUnregistered(ctx: ChannelHandlerContext?) {
    println("Established connections count = [${channelCounter.decrementAndGet()}]")
    super.channelUnregistered(ctx)
  }
  companion object: KLogging() {

    val RESPONSE_BYTES: ByteBuf = Unpooled.unreleasableBuffer(Unpooled.copiedBuffer("Hello World", CharsetUtil.UTF_8))
  }
}

Hi,

What’s the value for gatling.pooledConnectionIdleTimeout that you used with the sample you provided?

As the default value is 60 seconds and your virtual users execute a request every 10 seconds, it’s expected that the idle timeout is never triggered.

Note: maxConnectionsPerHost is a HTTP/1.1 only option used for limiting the number of concurrent connections when fetching resources. It has no effect in your use case.

Hello!
I’ve used 20 seconds(greater than pace) and also 8 seconds (less than pace) timeouts. In the first case there are 4 active connections in the pool, in the second case all 4 connections are closed in 8 seconds and the reinitialised after 2 seconds.
Thanks a lot for comment about connectionsPerHost.

Works as expected then?

I expect 1 connection will remain for multiplexing. Is this wrong assumption?

Yes. Because by default each virtual user has its connection connection pool.
if you want a shared connection pool, you must activate the appropriate option: https://gatling.io/docs/gatling/reference/current/http/protocol/#shareconnections

If you’re switching to this option (meaning it makes sense for your real use case), understand that if you’re spawning virtual users at the same time, the pool might be empty at the beginning of the test. The number of connections will get stable later.

Of course this case was taken from real application. It’s my misunderstanding of Gatling
http.shareConnections() usage. Thank You for fast and concise answer!

Hi!
Today I’ve used shareConnections. Nothing was changed: there were also 4 connections for 4 virtual users. I tried to make pacing random: from 2 seconds until 12 seconds. pooledConnectionIdleTimeout was 8 seconds. In my opinion, this could help with redundant connection closing. But logs showed just new connection establishment for every virtual user every time when user did not have any active connection. No connection reusage was observed. Test lasted 10 minutes.

Actually, we have one connection pool per event loop and we have twice the number of cores of event loops.
I guess that your connections are no actually idle. I ran a few tests and I do see the idle connections getting closed.

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