Frequently Asked Questions

Document updated on Sep 27, 2018

I am getting a 200 status when the backend returns a 201

E.g:

2017/01/19 - 10:31:27 | 200 |    1.134431ms | ::1 |   POST     /users

Explanation

By default, the gateway will always send an HTTP status 200 if the backend returns a 200 or a 201. You can inject your own HTTPStatusHandler implementation if you need a different behavior. Check this issue comment for more details.

I am getting a 500 status when the backend returns anything but 200, 201 or redirects

E.g:

2017/01/19 - 10:31:37 | 500 |    1.007191ms | ::1 |   POST     /users_ko

Explanation

By default, the gateway will always send an HTTP status 500 if the backend returns any status above 400. You can inject your own HTTPStatusHandler implementation if you need a different behavior. Check this issue comment for more details.

I am seeing frequent 503 errors in the logs

E.g:

2016/11/13 - 18:01:18 | 200 |    5.352143ms | ::1 |   GET     /frontpage
2016/11/13 - 18:01:18 | 503 |       5.662µs | ::1 |   GET     /frontpage
2016/11/13 - 18:01:18 | 503 |       5.662µs | ::1 |   GET     /frontpage

The max_rate setting defines the maximum number of requests allowed in a single second to an endpoint or backend. When this number is reached, subsequent connections are rejected with a 503 error. This limitation is optional and is usually set to avoid hammering your own backends and compromising their stability.

Solution

Increase the max_rate number or disable it (max_rate = 0). This setting can be set globally for all the endpoints, or overridden individually per endpoint.

Remember: failing fast is always better than overloading your infrastructure and degrading the quality of your entire services.

I am having empty responses

The main reasons for having responses are:

• Timeout when connecting the backend. The KrakenD service will cut the connection and will return an empty response if the backend does not respond in the time you set through the timeout variable. This variable is usually written in a magnitude of milliseconds.
• Invalid JSON/XML. When the backend received a malformed object as response and could not decode it.

See the solutions below.

Solution to cuts by timeout

When there is a timeout you’ll see the context deadline exceeded in the log, and it means only one thing: KrakenD couldn’t get the info on time (because of a network problem, or backend slowliness).

Error #01: context deadline exceeded

Whenever possible add caching layers in your backends, scale the infrastructure, etc. so backends answer on time. Increasing the timeout variable should be always your last option. If your backends are not able to respond in a short time think that when you increment the timeout what you really do is to block connections waiting for the backend. The memory consumption will increase and the number of connections you can open is finite. In a gateway, your focus should be freeing the connections as soon as possible.

Values above 2000ms are not recommended.

There are other times when KrakenD simply cannot reach the host due to a networking issue.

Solution to invalid responses.

Make sure your backend sources return valid Json/Xml/… data. Try any online service to check the validity and format of the returned content. If the response of your API is a collection, e.g: response comes inside brackets [], then make sure to mark the option Treat the response as a collection, not an object. in the form.

Reserved endpoints

The following names cannot be used as endpoint names as they are reserved:

/__debug
/__stats
/__health

I have found a vulnerability

If you think you have find a security problem, please report us the vulnerability