HTTP 500 errors hitting nodejs.org downloads

[orrc]

For an asset that hasn’t changed since 2018, that seems like it should be cached for a long time, I’m seeing intermittent HTTP 500 errors (maybe 20% of requests, but it fluctuates a lot) on nodejs.org.

From Berlin:
$ curl -s -I https://nodejs.org/dist/v10.9.0/node-v10.9.0-linux-x64.tar.gz
HTTP/2 500
date: Mon, 06 Apr 2020 13:22:24 GMT
content-type: text/html
set-cookie: __cfduid=de443c3188644d3d84e7c4e331ad68a021586179344; expires=Wed, 06-May-20 13:22:24 GMT; path=/; domain=.[domain]; HttpOnly; SameSite=Lax
cf-cache-status: BYPASS
expect-ct: max-age=604800, report-uri=“…”
server: Cloudflare
cf-ray: 57fbd144bfaf2d39-TXL

From the Netherlands (apparently with an older version of curl — no HTTP/2):
$ curl -s -I …
HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error
Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2020 13:26:40 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Connection: keep-alive
Set-Cookie: __cfduid=d76d5927740ac396173319a60752c9f1e1586179599; expires=Wed, 06-May-20 13:26:39 GMT; path=/; domain=.[domain]; HttpOnly; SameSite=Lax
CF-Cache-Status: BYPASS
Expect-CT: max-age=604800, report-uri=“…”
Server: Cloudflare
CF-RAY: 57fbd7831caed8b5-AMS

Successful response:
$ curl -s -I …
HTTP/2 200
date: Mon, 06 Apr 2020 13:34:29 GMT
content-type: application/gzip
content-length: 18503747
set-cookie: __cfduid=d81cf93ae0798fe999d852450b41f7b751586180056; expires=Wed, 06-May-20 13:34:16 GMT; path=/; domain=.[domain]; HttpOnly; SameSite=Lax
last-modified: Wed, 15 Aug 2018 13:46:06 GMT
etag: “5b742e9e-11a5843”
cache-control: max-age=14400
cf-cache-status: MISS
accept-ranges: bytes
expect-ct: max-age=604800, report-uri=“…”
server: Cloudflare
cf-ray: 57fbe2a7885ad115-TXL

I don’t know why the cache would be being bypassed(?) — but tbh, it’s not clear to me whether this is a Cloudflare or an origin issue.

There’s also a GitHub issue here, mentioning the same issue for various resources: GitHub:/nodejs/nodejs.org/issues/3075

[some URLs and hostnames elided, to get around the over-eager Discourse spam filter]

[Judge]

<center><h1>500 Internal Server Error</h1></center>
<hr><center>nginx</center>

As the responses show nginx, this is most likely an issue with their server. If Cloudflare had an issue, the nginx server token would be cloudflare or nginx-cloudflare.

It would seem odd to not serve them directly from Cloudflare though…

Even with something like nodejs (which is likely on the pro/business plan), cache assets aren’t stored on Cloudflare forever and will be evicted if CF’s higher-paying customers need the cache. CF is a reverse proxy and, unless they decide to use Workers KV/Workers Sites, CF doesn’t do any file storage.

[orrc]

Makes sense, thanks. That’s what I get for only trying HEAD requests…