Proxy_buffering=off, potential problems? other solutions?

Server NGINX
1

hi,

i have a fairly usual configuration of an nginx webserver + an
apache-based application-server behind it.

when requests come in, then nginx proxies it to apache, etc.

my problem is, that in certain cases, i need that when apache sends the
response to nginx, nginx should immediately send it to the client.

i can solve this by simply turning proxy_buffering off, with
“proxy_buffering = off”, but i’d like to know:

  1. what effect can this have? can it degrade performance?

  2. is there perhaps a different solution? for example sending back to
    nginx a special header perhaps, or something like that?

in short, is it recommended to simply turn off proxy_buffering in such
situations, or is there a better approach?

thanks,
gabor

2

On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:32:24PM +0100, G?bor Farkas wrote:

  1. what effect can this have? can it degrade performance?

  2. is there perhaps a different solution? for example sending back to
    nginx a special header perhaps, or something like that?

in short, is it recommended to simply turn off proxy_buffering in such
situations, or is there a better approach?

If response will be bigger than proxy_buffer_size, then backend will
be tied to nginx until the data will be sent to cliant.
The maximum data size that nginx can read from backend at once in this
mode
is proxy_buffer_size.