linkerd / linkerd/linkerd2

Synthetic proxy responses should contain an identifying header

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area/debug area/proxy good first issue needs/design priority/P1
Dominant language
Go
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Avg merge
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Description

All responses returned by the proxy are either a proxied response from another server or a synthetic response generated by the proxy (e.g. if the proxy encounters an error and returns a 500 or if the proxy times out a request and returns a 504).

When debugging issues, it can be difficult to know for sure if a response (especially a 500 response with no body) was generated by Linkerd or by a service that Linkerd is proxying to. If the proxy always adds some kind of identifying header on all synthetic responses, it would make this clear.

The inverse of this is having Linkerd add the Via header to responses that it proxies and this can be useful as well, especially if it is unclear whether a request is transitting a proxy or not (such as when debugging iptables issues).

Contributor guide

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing Linkerd's proxy response-generation entry points for synthetic 500 and 504 responses; the issue does not name specific files or tests. Determine how all synthetic responses can be distinguished from proxied responses, then add coverage showing the identifying header is present on each synthetic response.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
go
Domain
backend, networking
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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