coder / coder/code-server

Consider disabling WebSocket message splitting when permessage-deflate is off

Abierto
#7,724 1 comentario 0 reacciones 0 asignados Ver en GitHub
code-server enhancement needs-investigation
Lenguaje dominante
TypeScript
Estrellas
79.3k
Forks
6.8k
Merge medio
2 d 6 h
PR fusionados (30 d)
41

Descripción

## WebSocket message splitting adds significant latency for large files on proxied connections

When serving code-server behind a proxy (which is the common production deployment), the 256KB WebSocket message splitting introduced in [microsoft/vscode#174278](https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/pull/174278) multiplies per-message RTT overhead significantly for large file operations like image previews.

### Background

VS Code splits large IPC messages into 256KB chunks (`MaxWebSocketMessageLength = 256 * 1024` in `ipc.net.ts`) to avoid blocking the Node.js event loop during zlib compression. Each chunk becomes a separate WebSocket message.

### The latency problem in proxied deployments

In a proxied deployment (e.g. a gateway in front of a devbox), each WebSocket message incurs a full round-trip. With 100ms RTT between the proxy and the devbox:

- A 10MB file generates ~40 chunks (10MB ÷ 256KB)
- Each chunk = one WebSocket message = one round-trip
- Total overhead: ~40 × 100ms = **~4 seconds of pure latency**

We tested image preview times (time from opening a file in the explorer to the image fully rendering) across different file sizes at 100ms simulated RTT:

| File size | Splitting ON | Splitting OFF | Improvement |
|-----------|-------------|--------------|-------------|
| 145 KB | 2,212ms | 2,251ms | ~0% |
| 1 MB | 1,988ms | 1,707ms | 14% |
| 1.5 MB | 2,093ms | 1,412ms | 33% |
| 5.6 MB | 4,255ms | 2,193ms | 48% |
| **10.3 MB** | **7,262ms** | **2,888ms** | **60%** |

### Is disabling splitting safe? (Does zlib actually block?)

A few basic tests didn't seem to indicate this issue in our case, but more investigation may be needed

### Question

Would you consider making `enableMessageSplitting` configurable via a CLI flag, or defaulting it to `false` for single-user deployments?

Happy to submit a PR if there's agreement on the right approach.

Guía de contribución

Abrir la guía de contribución

Evaluación

Este issue todavía no se ha evaluado.

Recibe los nuevos issues en tu correo

Un resumen breve de issues de GitHub para principiantes.