node-http-tests

Comparing HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2 and QUIC with Node.js

Pre-requisites

• Install Node.js by following these steps:
  1. Install nvm
  2. Install node v12.x by running nvm install 12 and nvm use 12 in a terminal window
  3. Verify that node is installed by running node -v in a terminal window and confirm that it shows the latest version of v12, such as v12.13.0)
• Install netstat for inspecting TCP connections
  • On Ubuntu, netstat can be installed by running sudo apt-get install net-tools
• Install tcpflow for inspecting TCP connections in detail
  • On Ubuntu, netstat can be installed by running sudo apt-get install tcpflow

HTTP/1.1 server

• Run node http.js in one terminal
• Run watch 'netstat -t | grep 3000' in another terminal
• Visit https://localhost:3000 in your browser
• Browser tab would display "Hello World".
• netstat terminal will display the new TCP connection created, for example:

  Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State      
  tcp6       0      0 ip6-localhost:3000      ip6-localhost:49524     ESTABLISHED
  tcp6       0      0 ip6-localhost:49524     ip6-localhost:3000      ESTABLISHED
  tcp6       0      0 ip6-localhost:3000      ip6-localhost:49522     ESTABLISHED
  tcp6       0      0 ip6-localhost:49522     ip6-localhost:3000      ESTABLISHED

• If you examine the ouput using sudo tcpflow -c, then you'll see that the TCP sockets (49522 and 49524) were created to download the two CSS files in parallel

HTTP/2 server

• Run node http2.js in one terminal
• Run watch 'netstat -t | grep 3000' in another terminal
• Visit https://localhost:3000 in your browser
• Browser tab would display "Hello World".
• netstat terminal will display the new TCP connection created, for example:

  Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State      
  tcp6       0      0 ip6-localhost:3000      ip6-localhost:50162     ESTABLISHED
  tcp6       0      0 ip6-localhost:50162     ip6-localhost:3000      ESTABLISHED

• If you examine the ouput using sudo tcpflow -c, then you'll see that all files are downloaded over single TCP socket (50162 in above example)

QUIC server

• Run ../quic/node quic.js in one terminal
  • where ../quic/node is the node build with quic enabled
  • Follow instructions in nodejs/quic#183 to build node with QUIC enabled
  • WIP PR for merging QUIC in Node.js core can be viewed at nodejs/node#30943
• Run google-chrome-unstable --enable-quic --quic-version=h3-23 to start google-chrome-unstable with quic enabled
  • Visit https://localhost:3000 in your browser, and it'll display "This site can't be reached"
  • The terminal which runs Chrome displays Fontconfig error: Cannot load default config file
  • This issue is being discussed in trivikr/node-http-servers/#2
• Alternatively, you can build curl with quic support by following these instructions

  • Run src/curl --http3 https://localhost:3000, and it fails with the following error:

    curl: (56) nghttp3_conn_read_stream returned error: ERR_HTTP_FRAME_ERROR

  • This issue is being discussed in trivikr/node-http-servers/#3