# Lots of 'client timed out' messages

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/lots-of-client-timed-out-messages/150110>\
**Category:** NGINX\
**Created:** [October 3, 2008, 9:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/lots-of-client-timed-out-messages/150110 "2008-10-03T21:15:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![praveen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@praveen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/praveen)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2008, 9:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/lots-of-client-timed-out-messages/150110/1 "2008-10-03T21:15:02Z")

</div>

Hi all,  
I just started using nginx, and I wanted to thank Igor and the other  
devs for nginx.

I’m using nginx as a reverse proxy to my backends. I’m monitoring my  
logs and I am unable to explain a few things I see there:

1. 2008/10/03 11:35:54 [info] 5631#0: \*1416613 client timed out (110:  
Connection timed out) while reading client request line, client:  
x.x.x.x , server: [example.com](http://example.com)

I see a lot of these messages, and not clear what’s the reason behind  
this. I skimmed thro’ the source, but its being generated from  
multiple places, so I’m not sure. I find it hard to believe that so  
many clients would open connections and not send (or partially send)  
data/headers.

1. 2008/10/02 19:45:01 [info] 5289#0: \*24271 client timed out (110:  
Connection timed out) while sending to client,…

I see a few of these. The file being transferred here is about 150k.  
Not sure why the timeout again.

1. What exactly does the ‘keepalive\_timeout’ directive mean? Is it the  
‘idle’ time after which if there is no data the connection is closed  
(similar to server.max-keep-alive-idle to those of you who know  
lighty) or is it just the time after which the connection is closed.

2. I have a couple of big files (about 300k) being sent by the  
backend. What would be a good setting for the proxy\_buffers directive  
to avoid intermediate temp files? I see a few of these: “2008/10/03  
11:45:43 [warn] 5628#0: \*1476309 an upstream response is buffered to a  
temporary file”

I am attaching part of my conf file. System config: Ubuntu 6.06 on  
Intel Xeon Quad Core (32 bit), 2G RAM.

* * *

keepalive\_timeout 75;

location / {  
proxy\_pass [http://backend](http://backend);  
proxy\_set\_header X-Forwarded-For $remote\_addr;

```
        proxy_read_timeout 120;

        proxy_buffers 32 4K;

```

## }

I have no other timeout directives set.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

-Praveen