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Asked: 2026-05-22T23:27:46+00:00

I have the latest Nginx running with Passenger, SQLite and Rails 3.1. Somehow, when

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I have the latest Nginx running with Passenger, SQLite and Rails 3.1. Somehow, when I have Passenger running for a while, I start getting “502 bad gateway” errors when visiting my website.

Here is a snippet from my Nginx error log:

2011/06/27 08:55:33 [error] 20331#0: *11270 upstream prematurely closed connection while reading response header from upstream, client: xxx.xxx.xx.x, server: www.example.com, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", upstream: "passenger:unix:/passenger_helper_server:", host: "example.com"
2011/06/27 08:55:47 [info] 20331#0: *11273 client closed prematurely connection, so upstream connection is closed too while sending request to upstream, client: xxx.xxx.xx.x, server: www.example.com, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", upstream: "passenger:unix:/passenger_helper_server:", host: "example.com"

Here is my passenger-status --show=backtraces output:

Thread 'Client thread 7':
 in 'Passenger::FileDescriptor Client::acceptConnection()' (HelperAgent.cpp:160)
 in 'void Client::threadMain()' (HelperAgent.cpp:603)

Thread 'Client thread 10':
 in 'Passenger::FileDescriptor Client::acceptConnection()' (HelperAgent.cpp:160)
 in 'void Client::threadMain()' (HelperAgent.cpp:603)

Thread 'Client thread 11':
 in 'Passenger::FileDescriptor Client::acceptConnection()' (HelperAgent.cpp:160)
 in 'void Client::threadMain()' (HelperAgent.cpp:603)

Thread 'Client thread 12':
 in 'Passenger::FileDescriptor Client::acceptConnection()' (HelperAgent.cpp:160)
 in 'void Client::threadMain()' (HelperAgent.cpp:603)

Thread 'Client thread 13':
 in 'Passenger::FileDescriptor Client::acceptConnection()' (HelperAgent.cpp:160)
 in 'void Client::threadMain()' (HelperAgent.cpp:603)

Thread 'Client thread 14':
 in 'Passenger::FileDescriptor Client::acceptConnection()' (HelperAgent.cpp:160)
 in 'void Client::threadMain()' (HelperAgent.cpp:603)

Thread 'Client thread 15':
 in 'Passenger::FileDescriptor Client::acceptConnection()' (HelperAgent.cpp:160)
 in 'void Client::threadMain()' (HelperAgent.cpp:603)

Thread 'Client thread 16':
 in 'Passenger::FileDescriptor Client::acceptConnection()' (HelperAgent.cpp:160)
 in 'void Client::threadMain()' (HelperAgent.cpp:603)

Thread 'Client thread 17':
 in 'Passenger::FileDescriptor Client::acceptConnection()' (HelperAgent.cpp:160)
 in 'void Client::threadMain()' (HelperAgent.cpp:603)

Thread 'Client thread 18':
 in 'Passenger::FileDescriptor Client::acceptConnection()' (HelperAgent.cpp:160)
 in 'void Client::threadMain()' (HelperAgent.cpp:603)

Thread 'Client thread 19':
 in 'Passenger::FileDescriptor Client::acceptConnection()' (HelperAgent.cpp:160)
 in 'void Client::threadMain()' (HelperAgent.cpp:603)

Thread 'Client thread 20':
 in 'Passenger::FileDescriptor Client::acceptConnection()' (HelperAgent.cpp:160)
 in 'void Client::threadMain()' (HelperAgent.cpp:603)

Thread 'Client thread 21':
 in 'Passenger::FileDescriptor Client::acceptConnection()' (HelperAgent.cpp:160)
 in 'void Client::threadMain()' (HelperAgent.cpp:603)

Thread 'Client thread 22':
 in 'Passenger::FileDescriptor Client::acceptConnection()' (HelperAgent.cpp:160)
 in 'void Client::threadMain()' (HelperAgent.cpp:603)

Thread 'Client thread 23':
 in 'Passenger::FileDescriptor Client::acceptConnection()' (HelperAgent.cpp:160)
 in 'void Client::threadMain()' (HelperAgent.cpp:603)

Thread 'Client thread 24':
 in 'Passenger::FileDescriptor Client::acceptConnection()' (HelperAgent.cpp:160)
 in 'void Client::threadMain()' (HelperAgent.cpp:603)

Thread 'MessageServer thread':
 in 'void Passenger::MessageServer::mainLoop()' (MessageServer.h:537)

Thread 'MessageServer client thread 35':
 in 'virtual bool Passenger::BacktracesServer::processMessage(Passenger::MessageServer::CommonClientContext&, boost::shared_ptr<Passenger::MessageServer::ClientContext>&, const std::vector<std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >, std::allocator<std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> > > >&)' (BacktracesServer.h:47)
 in 'void Passenger::MessageServer::clientHandlingMainLoop(Passenger::FileDescriptor&)' (MessageServer.h:470)

This is what my passenger-memory-stats shows:

---------- Nginx processes ----------
PID    PPID   VMSize   Private  Name
-------------------------------------
16291  1      35.4 MB  0.1 MB   nginx: master process /home/apps/.nginx/sbin/nginx
16292  16291  36.0 MB  0.8 MB   nginx: worker process
16293  16291  35.8 MB  0.5 MB   nginx: worker process
16294  16291  35.8 MB  0.5 MB   nginx: worker process
16295  16291  35.8 MB  0.5 MB   nginx: worker process
### Processes: 5
### Total private dirty RSS: 2.46 MB


----- Passenger processes ------
PID    VMSize    Private   Name
--------------------------------
16251  87.0 MB   0.3 MB    PassengerWatchdog
16254  100.4 MB  1.3 MB    PassengerHelperAgent
16256  41.6 MB   5.7 MB    Passenger spawn server
16259  134.8 MB  0.8 MB    PassengerLoggingAgent
18390  770.4 MB  17.1 MB   Passenger ApplicationSpawner: /home/apps/manager/current
18415  853.3 MB  147.7 MB  Rack: /home/apps/manager/current
18424  790.5 MB  57.2 MB   Rack: /home/apps/manager/current
18431  774.7 MB  18.7 MB   Rack: /home/apps/manager/current
### Processes: 8
### Total private dirty RSS: 248.85 MB

It seems there is an issue with my the communication between Passenger and Nginx?

Also, looking at the Rails logs, it is clear that the request never reaches Rails at all, as there are no log entries for visits that get the 502 error. So my initial thought of something being wrong with any Rack middleware should not be possible.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The “V” in VM is for Virtual. See also answers on other SO questions, e.g. Virtual Memory Usage from Java under Linux, too much memory used.

    That top 147 MB does not hint of anything unusual whatsoever. Your 502 errors mean something else is wrong with the worker processes from Passenger’s point of view. You should check your Rails & Nginx log files for clues, and perhaps passenger-status --show=backtraces.

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