HTTP Timeouts

3 minute read

The default request timeout is set to 15 seconds in Envoy Proxy. The HTTPRouteTimeouts resource allows users to configure request timeouts for an HTTPRouteRule. This task shows you how to configure timeouts.

The HTTPRouteTimeouts supports two kinds of timeouts:

request: Request specifies the maximum duration for a gateway to respond to an HTTP request.
backendRequest: BackendRequest specifies a timeout for an individual request from the gateway to a backend.

Note: The Request duration must be >= BackendRequest duration

Prerequisites

Follow the steps below to install Envoy Gateway and the example manifest. Before proceeding, you should be able to query the example backend using HTTP.

Expand for instructions

Install the Gateway API CRDs and Envoy Gateway using Helm:

helm install eg oci://docker.io/envoyproxy/gateway-helm --version v0.0.0-latest -n envoy-gateway-system --create-namespace

Install the GatewayClass, Gateway, HTTPRoute and example app:

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/download/latest/quickstart.yaml -n default

Verify Connectivity:
You can also test the same functionality by sending traffic to the External IP. To get the external IP of the Envoy service, run:
```
export GATEWAY_HOST=$(kubectl get gateway/eg -o jsonpath='{.status.addresses[0].value}')
```
Note: In certain environments, the load balancer may be exposed using a hostname, instead of an IP address. If so, replace ip in the above command with hostname.
Curl the example app through Envoy proxy:
```
curl --verbose --header "Host: www.example.com" http://$GATEWAY_HOST/get
```
Get the name of the Envoy service created by the example Gateway:
```
export ENVOY_SERVICE=$(kubectl get svc -n envoy-gateway-system --selector=gateway.envoyproxy.io/owning-gateway-namespace=default,gateway.envoyproxy.io/owning-gateway-name=eg -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}')
```
Port forward to the Envoy service:
```
kubectl -n envoy-gateway-system port-forward service/${ENVOY_SERVICE} 8888:80 &
```
Curl the example app through Envoy proxy:
```
curl --verbose --header "Host: www.example.com" http://localhost:8888/get
```

Verification

backend has the ability to delay responses; we use it as the backend to control response time.

request timeout

We configure the backend to delay responses by 3 seconds, then we set the request timeout to 4 seconds. Envoy Gateway will successfully respond to the request.

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: backend
spec:
  hostnames:
  - timeout.example.com
  parentRefs:
  - group: gateway.networking.k8s.io
    kind: Gateway
    name: eg
  rules:
  - backendRefs:
    - group: ""
      kind: Service
      name: backend
      port: 3000
      weight: 1
    matches:
    - path:
        type: PathPrefix
        value: /
    timeouts:
      request: "4s"
EOF

Save and apply the following resource to your cluster:

---
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: backend
spec:
  hostnames:
  - timeout.example.com
  parentRefs:
  - group: gateway.networking.k8s.io
    kind: Gateway
    name: eg
  rules:
  - backendRefs:
    - group: ""
      kind: Service
      name: backend
      port: 3000
      weight: 1
    matches:
    - path:
        type: PathPrefix
        value: /
    timeouts:
      request: "4s"

curl --header "Host: timeout.example.com" http://${GATEWAY_HOST}/?delay=3s  -I

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
content-type: application/json
x-content-type-options: nosniff
date: Mon, 04 Mar 2024 02:34:21 GMT
content-length: 480

Then we set the request timeout to 2 seconds. In this case, Envoy Gateway will respond with a timeout.

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: backend
spec:
  hostnames:
  - timeout.example.com
  parentRefs:
  - group: gateway.networking.k8s.io
    kind: Gateway
    name: eg
  rules:
  - backendRefs:
    - group: ""
      kind: Service
      name: backend
      port: 3000
      weight: 1
    matches:
    - path:
        type: PathPrefix
        value: /
    timeouts:
      request: "2s"
EOF

Save and apply the following resource to your cluster:

---
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: backend
spec:
  hostnames:
  - timeout.example.com
  parentRefs:
  - group: gateway.networking.k8s.io
    kind: Gateway
    name: eg
  rules:
  - backendRefs:
    - group: ""
      kind: Service
      name: backend
      port: 3000
      weight: 1
    matches:
    - path:
        type: PathPrefix
        value: /
    timeouts:
      request: "2s"

curl --header "Host: timeout.example.com" http://${GATEWAY_HOST}/?delay=3s  -v

*   Trying 127.0.0.1:80...
* Connected to 127.0.0.1 (127.0.0.1) port 80
> GET /?delay=3s HTTP/1.1
> Host: timeout.example.com
> User-Agent: curl/8.6.0
> Accept: */*
>


< HTTP/1.1 504 Gateway Timeout
< content-length: 24
< content-type: text/plain
< date: Mon, 04 Mar 2024 02:35:03 GMT
<
* Connection #0 to host 127.0.0.1 left intact
upstream request timeout

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Last modified February 21, 2025: feat: support HPA in helm chart (#5127) (57c7e64)