Mitmproxy 11: Full HTTP/3 Support

Do http/2 and http/3 offer any benefits if they are only supported by the reverse proxy but not the underlying web server? Most mainstream frameworks for JS/Python/Ruby don't support the newer http standards. Won't the web server be a bottleneck for the reverse proxied connection?

Re: Mitmproxy 11: Full HTTP/3 Support

#5

Post by masspro » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 11:16 PM UTC

Onavo wrote: post #4

Do http/2 and http/3 offer any benefits if they are only supported by the reverse proxy but not the underlying web server? Most mainstream frameworks for JS/Python/Ruby don't support the newer http standards. Won't the web server be a bottleneck for the reverse proxied connection?

Probably not, but mitmproxy is not a reverse proxy for any production purpose. It’s for running on your local machine and doing testing of either low-level protocol or web security stuff.

Re: Mitmproxy 11: Full HTTP/3 Support

#6

Post by connicpu » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 11:24 PM UTC

Onavo wrote: post #4

Do http/2 and http/3 offer any benefits if they are only supported by the reverse proxy but not the underlying web server? Most mainstream frameworks for JS/Python/Ruby don't support the newer http standards. Won't the web server be a bottleneck for the reverse proxied connection?

Depends. If they're running on the same box, the reverse proxy will be able to initiate tcp connections to the web server much more cheaply. Even if they're just in the same datacenter, the lower round trip latency will reduce the time for establishing TCP connections. Plus, the proxy might be load balancing across multiple instances of the backend.

Re: Mitmproxy 11: Full HTTP/3 Support

#7

Post by Narhem » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 11:42 PM UTC

Onavo wrote: post #4

Do http/2 and http/3 offer any benefits if they are only supported by the reverse proxy but not the underlying web server? Most mainstream frameworks for JS/Python/Ruby don't support the newer http standards. Won't the web server be a bottleneck for the reverse proxied connection?

http/3 seems to be an excellent opportunity to optimize HTMX or any of the libraries which leverage HTML fragments like JSX. The obvious advantage of http/3 is for gaming.

The servers which run the frameworks have to http/3. In most cases the advantages should be transparent to the developers.

Re: Mitmproxy 11: Full HTTP/3 Support

#8

Post by deznu » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 11:58 PM UTC

Narhem wrote: post #7

Onavo wrote: post #4

Do http/2 and http/3 offer any benefits if they are only supported by the reverse proxy but not the underlying web server? Most mainstream frameworks for JS/Python/Ruby don't support the newer http standards. Won't the web server be a bottleneck for the reverse proxied connection?

http/3 seems to be an excellent opportunity to optimize HTMX or any of the libraries which leverage HTML fragments like JSX. The obvious advantage of http/3 is for gaming. The servers which run the frameworks have to http/3. In most cases the advantages should be transparent to the developers.

I’m curious what about HTTP/3 is particularly advantageous with HTMX?

Re: Mitmproxy 11: Full HTTP/3 Support

#9

Post by apitman » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 12:03 AM UTC

connicpu wrote: post #6

Onavo wrote: post #4

Do http/2 and http/3 offer any benefits if they are only supported by the reverse proxy but not the underlying web server? Most mainstream frameworks for JS/Python/Ruby don't support the newer http standards. Won't the web server be a bottleneck for the reverse proxied connection?

Depends. If they're running on the same box, the reverse proxy will be able to initiate tcp connections to the web server much more cheaply. Even if they're just in the same datacenter, the lower round trip latency will reduce the time for establishing TCP connections. Plus, the proxy might be load balancing across multiple instances of the backend.

Also browsers limit the number of HTTP/1.1 requests you can have in flight to a specific domain

Re: Mitmproxy 11: Full HTTP/3 Support

#10

Post by markasoftware » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 12:42 AM UTC

Onavo wrote: post #4

Do http/2 and http/3 offer any benefits if they are only supported by the reverse proxy but not the underlying web server? Most mainstream frameworks for JS/Python/Ruby don't support the newer http standards. Won't the web server be a bottleneck for the reverse proxied connection?

the transport between reverse proxy backend is not always http, eg python w/ uwsgi and php w/ fastcgi.

And even when it is HTTP, as other commenters said, the reverse proxy is able to handshake connections to the backend much more quickly than an actual remote client would, so it's still advantageous to use http/2 streams for the slower part of the connection.