How does haproxy handle dead servers?

Hello,

we are writing a script which reports a server as dead (504 http status code) when one of a number of conditions occurrs. The server is overloaded, is currently running cron jobs etc. This script will be entered as the health check script in haproxy.

We do have one question. Assume the server is full of heavy php instances and prefers to mark itself unavailable for new connections. The script sets itself to 504. Haproxy notices this and marks the server as dead, thereby not sending new connections to the server.

What happens to the current connections, which are still open on the server? Does haproxy in some way close them, or can the client still receive his data?

Thanks

Jan

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