5 ms·

Interesting to see that now the current stable versions of Chrome and Firefox have dropped spdy/2, which is the only version of spdy supported by the current st

by wbond 13y ago

Interesting to see that now the current stable versions of Chrome and Firefox have dropped spdy/2, which is the only version of spdy supported by the current stable version of nginx. And nginx is the server used by more than 90% of hosts supporting spdy[1]. I presume this means it is mostly a Google/Twitter/Cloudflare thing for now since they seem to all be running spdy/3.1 in production. [1] http://w3techs.com/technologies/segmentation/ce-spdy/web_server http://w3techs.com/technologies/segmentation/ce-spdy/web_ser...

bad_user 13y ago
I don't think people that are running Nginx with spdy are doing so with the stable version. I started using spdy back when it was a patch you had to manually apply, before compiling Nginx.
- wbond 13y ago
  Count me as one of those people who doesn't like to have to work around backwards compatibility breaks when installing security patches on production servers. :-) (edit: clarified wording)
  - marcosdumay 13y ago
    There's always HTTP 1.1 available for the people that don't want the burdein of being on the leading edge (yep, I'm on that team). Anyway, doesn't spdy/2 have a huge security flaw in certificate management? I don't remember it well. If that's the case, it's good that they droped it.
- peedy 13y ago
  These days you just have compile it with --with-http_spdy_module in configure step. (for the current 1.4.6-stable). We were about to go into production but will hold it off. Also the current mainline 1.5 version has implementation of spdy/3.
sp332 13y ago
Chrome has also dropped support for SPDY/2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPDY#Protocol_versions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPDY#Protocol_versions
hobohacker 13y ago
Speaking as a Chromium SPDY & HTTP/2 developer, we are very much focused on standardization. SPDY is an experimental protocol meant to drive the standards process, not become a de facto standard itself. Therefore, it's critical for us to kill off old SPDY versions. For more discussion on this topic, please refer to these discussion threads: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/spdy-dev/_uvxTJkeCP0 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/spdy-dev/_uvxTJkeCP0 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/spdy-dev/XDudMZSq3e4 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/spdy-dev/XDudMZSq3e4 And note that your reference is slightly misleading (I don't think you intended this). It's true, the vast majority of hosts supporting SPDY are running nginx. In practice though, the vast majority of these hosts are Cloudflare or WordPress.com hosted sites. Both run newer versions of nginx with SPDY/3.1 support.
- wbond 13y ago
  Right, so my point stands that it is interesting that current stable browsers don't support current stable web servers. So unless someone has the resources to test and deploy unstable web servers, it effectively means you shouldn't bother with spdy at this point.
  - hobohacker 13y ago
    I think it's a fair assessment that supporting experimental technologies requires more engineering resources. Everyone has to do the cost/benefit analysis themselves.
    - wbond 13y ago
      You seem intent on arguing about something I have never contested. I just made the (implied) observation that anyone deploying nginx shouldn't even bother enabling spdy in 1.4 (stable) because effectively nothing will use it anymore. It was something that people who use "stable" software were able to benefit from starting in May 2013, but it is now no longer and won't be again until nginx reaches 1.6. That is, unless spdy/3 is dropped in favor of spdy/4 by then. (edit: fixed date)
spindritf 13y ago
The 'mainline' branch of nginx which supports spdy/3 is not considered unstable and can be used in production. Source: http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,221377,221390#msg-221390 http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,221377,221390#msg-221390
- wbond 13y ago
  Except when a security patch comes out and the API changed between security releases and you have to potentially update configuration and fix third-party modules.
barkingcat 13y ago
Nginx has had spdy3.1 support since late Jan, 2014, starting with nginx 1.5.10 (don't use that version, read on). The current nginx 1.5.12 has patches to fix an overflow issue with the spdy support so it's gotten at least some attention paid to it since the feature was released. I expect spdy3.1 support will only get better as more and more people move to the latest version of nginx. Check http://nginx.org/en/CHANGES http://nginx.org/en/CHANGES for the changelog.

by wbond 13y ago

bad_user 13y ago

I don't think people that are running Nginx with spdy are doing so with the stable version. I started using spdy back when it was a patch you had to manually apply, before compiling Nginx.

wbond 13y ago
Count me as one of those people who doesn't like to have to work around backwards compatibility breaks when installing security patches on production servers. :-) (edit: clarified wording)
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  There's always HTTP 1.1 available for the people that don't want the burdein of being on the leading edge (yep, I'm on that team). Anyway, doesn't spdy/2 have a huge security flaw in certificate management? I don't remember it well. If that's the case, it's good that they droped it.
peedy 13y ago
These days you just have compile it with --with-http_spdy_module in configure step. (for the current 1.4.6-stable). We were about to go into production but will hold it off. Also the current mainline 1.5 version has implementation of spdy/3.

sp332 13y ago

Chrome has also dropped support for SPDY/2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPDY#Protocol_versions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPDY#Protocol_versions

hobohacker 13y ago

Speaking as a Chromium SPDY & HTTP/2 developer, we are very much focused on standardization. SPDY is an experimental protocol meant to drive the standards process, not become a de facto standard itself. Therefore, it's critical for us to kill off old SPDY versions. For more discussion on this topic, please refer to these discussion threads: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/spdy-dev/_uvxTJkeCP0 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/spdy-dev/_uvxTJkeCP0 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/spdy-dev/XDudMZSq3e4 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/spdy-dev/XDudMZSq3e4 And note that your reference is slightly misleading (I don't think you intended this). It's true, the vast majority of hosts supporting SPDY are running nginx. In practice though, the vast majority of these hosts are Cloudflare or WordPress.com hosted sites. Both run newer versions of nginx with SPDY/3.1 support.

wbond 13y ago
Right, so my point stands that it is interesting that current stable browsers don't support current stable web servers. So unless someone has the resources to test and deploy unstable web servers, it effectively means you shouldn't bother with spdy at this point.
- hobohacker 13y ago
  I think it's a fair assessment that supporting experimental technologies requires more engineering resources. Everyone has to do the cost/benefit analysis themselves.
  - wbond 13y ago
    You seem intent on arguing about something I have never contested. I just made the (implied) observation that anyone deploying nginx shouldn't even bother enabling spdy in 1.4 (stable) because effectively nothing will use it anymore. It was something that people who use "stable" software were able to benefit from starting in May 2013, but it is now no longer and won't be again until nginx reaches 1.6. That is, unless spdy/3 is dropped in favor of spdy/4 by then. (edit: fixed date)

spindritf 13y ago

The 'mainline' branch of nginx which supports spdy/3 is not considered unstable and can be used in production. Source: http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,221377,221390#msg-221390 http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,221377,221390#msg-221390

wbond 13y ago
Except when a security patch comes out and the API changed between security releases and you have to potentially update configuration and fix third-party modules.

barkingcat 13y ago

Nginx has had spdy3.1 support since late Jan, 2014, starting with nginx 1.5.10 (don't use that version, read on). The current nginx 1.5.12 has patches to fix an overflow issue with the spdy support so it's gotten at least some attention paid to it since the feature was released. I expect spdy3.1 support will only get better as more and more people move to the latest version of nginx. Check http://nginx.org/en/CHANGES http://nginx.org/en/CHANGES for the changelog.