Files
reverse-proxy/docs/architecture/decisions/023-http2-client-facing.md
glm-5.1 0d54eba41e Update architecture specs to reflect live deployment findings and fix two bugs
Architecture updates based on gaps discovered during live deployment testing:

- ADR-023: HTTP/2 client-facing support via ALPN-based protocol detection.
  The spec previously said HTTP/2 was out of scope, but the deployment
  revealed that modern browsers negotiate HTTP/2 via ALPN. The proxy now
  correctly detects the negotiated ALPN protocol and uses the appropriate
  HTTP server builder (http2::Builder for h2, auto::Builder for http/1.1).
  Upstream connections remain HTTP/1.1. Host resolution now falls back to
  URI host for HTTP/2 :authority pseudo-headers.

- ADR-024: ANSI-disabled logging. All tracing-subscriber layers now use
  with_ansi(false) to prevent ANSI escape codes in log output, which broke
  fail2ban regex matching in Docker deployments. Also documents the fail2ban
  regex anchor fix (^RATE_LIMIT → RATE_LIMIT).

Bug fixes found by architecture review:

- Fix missing ALPN protocols in manual TLS mode. build_manual_server_config
  and build_multi_domain_server_config did not set alpn_protocols, meaning
  manual TLS mode could not support HTTP/2. Added h2 and http/1.1 ALPN
  entries to both functions (acme-tls/1 only in ACME mode).

- Fix missing with_ansi(false) in JSON log format. The init_json function
  with file output did not disable ANSI on stdout or file layers, which would
  break fail2ban in production JSON logging mode.

Other spec updates:

- All document statuses updated from draft to reviewed
- proxy.md: documented Server header removal, upstream HTTPS client,
  two-phase timeout enforcement, HTTP/2 host resolution, connect timeout
- tls.md: documented ALPN configuration differing by mode (ACME vs manual)
- overview.md: added HTTP/2 client-facing support to scope, updated crate
  deps (hyper-rustls, rustls-native-certs, hyper-util), clarified out-of-scope
- config.md: fixed http_port type (u16→u32) to match implementation, added
  ANSI-disabled note for LoggingConfig
- operations.md: documented ANSI-disabled logging, fail2ban regex anchor
- open-questions.md: updated OQ-09 resolution (connect timeout fully
  implemented), OQ-10 (C2 bug is fixed)
2026-06-12 11:28:31 +00:00

3.1 KiB

ADR-023: HTTP/2 Client-Facing Support

Status

Accepted

Context

The original architecture spec excluded HTTP/2 proxying from scope, stating "HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 proxying (services that need these run their own native Rust servers)." This was interpreted as excluding HTTP/2 entirely — both for client connections and upstream connections.

During deployment testing, we discovered that modern browsers and HTTP clients negotiate HTTP/2 via ALPN during the TLS handshake. The initial implementation used hyper_util::server::conn::auto::Builder which failed to properly detect HTTP/2 over TLS connections because its ReadVersion mechanism doesn't work reliably with tokio-rustls TlsStream wrappers.

This caused two problems:

  1. HTTP/2 clients received degraded performance (no multiplexing) or connection failures
  2. In HTTP/2, the host is conveyed via the :authority pseudo-header, which hyper represents as the URI host rather than a Host header — causing 400 errors for HTTP/2 clients

Decision

The proxy now supports HTTP/2 on the client-facing side (between the client and the proxy). This is distinct from HTTP/2 proxying to upstream services, which remains out of scope.

Implementation:

  1. ALPN-based protocol detection: After the TLS handshake, the proxy reads the negotiated ALPN protocol from tls_stream.get_ref().1.alpn_protocol(). If the ALPN is h2, the connection uses hyper::server::conn::http2::Builder; otherwise, it uses hyper_util::server::conn::auto::Builder with HTTP/1.1 + upgrade support.

  2. Host header fallback: The proxy handler now falls back to req.uri().host() when the Host header is absent. In HTTP/2, the :authority pseudo-header is represented as the URI host in hyper, so this correctly handles both HTTP/1.1 (where Host is always present) and HTTP/2 (where :authority maps to URI host).

  3. ALPN advertisement: The TLS ServerConfig advertises h2 and http/1.1 as ALPN protocols, plus acme-tls/1 for ACME challenges.

Upstream connections remain HTTP/1.1. The proxy communicates with upstream services over HTTP/1.1 (or HTTPS/1.1 when upstream_scheme = "https"). HTTP/2 to upstreams is out of scope for Phase 1.

Consequences

Positive:

  • Modern browsers and HTTP/2 clients work correctly with the proxy
  • HTTP/2 multiplexing improves client-facing performance (multiple requests over a single connection)
  • ALPN-based detection is the standard mechanism for HTTP/2 negotiation over TLS
  • Host header fallback correctly handles both HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2

Negative:

  • Slightly more complex TLS listener code (ALPN protocol detection, dual builder paths)
  • The distinction between "HTTP/2 to the proxy" and "HTTP/2 to upstream" must be clearly documented to avoid confusion
  • ConnectInfoService is typed to Request<Incoming> rather than the generic Request<B>, which is a correct but slightly less flexible implementation

References

  • proxy.md — request flow and host-based routing
  • tls.md — TLS termination and ALPN configuration
  • overview.md — scope and out-of-scope items