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[PATCH 1/4] http: fix retry count and Retry-After timing

From
RGRavi Mistry via GitGitGadget <gitgitgadget@gmail.com>
Date
Oct 31, 2026, 15:57 UTC
Message-ID
<80b7f207f42cff0a3dfe23181ee315fdc90e50ff.1793462224.git.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To
<pull.2287.git.1793462224.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>
From: Ravi Mistry <rmistry@google.com>

Commit 640657ffd0 (http: add support for HTTP 429 rate limit retries, 2026-03-17) introduced two small bugs in HTTP 429 retry handling:

1. In http_request_recoverable(), rate_limit_retries is initialized to
   http_max_retries (the number of retries to perform after the initial
   failed request) and decremented with pre-decrement
   (--rate_limit_retries) in the while condition. Because of the
   pre-decrement, setting http.maxRetries=1 performs 0 retries, and
   more generally N configured retries only retries N-1 times. In
   addition, if the first request returns 401 (HTTP_REAUTH) and the
   re-authenticated request returns 429 when http.maxRetries is 0,
   --rate_limit_retries wraps from 0 to -1 (truthy in C).
   Fix this by checking http_max_retries > 0 && rate_limit_retries-- > 0
   in the loop condition and returning HTTP_ERROR when
   http_max_retries <= 0.
2. In http_request(), CURLINFO_RETRY_AFTER is queried after
   run_one_slot() has already called handle_curl_result(), which logs
   results->retry_after to Trace2 ("http/429-retry-after") while it is
   still -1. Move the CURLINFO_RETRY_AFTER extraction into
   finish_active_slot() (initializing slot->results->retry_after = -1
   first) so that both handle_curl_result() and callers of
   run_one_slot() observe the parsed Retry-After value.
Signed-off-by: Ravi Mistry <rmistry@google.com>
---
 http.c                    | 27 +++++++++++++--------------
 t/lib-httpd/http-429.sh   | 31 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----
 t/t5584-http-429-retry.sh | 21 +++++++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 60 insertions(+), 19 deletions(-)
diff --git a/http.c b/http.c
index d79678d01f..0308f973a6 100644
--- a/http.c
+++ b/http.c
@@ -345,11 +345,20 @@ static void finish_active_slot(struct active_request_slot *slot)
 	if (slot->results) {
 		slot->results->curl_result = slot->curl_result;
 		slot->results->http_code = slot->http_code;
+		slot->results->retry_after = -1;
 		curl_easy_getinfo(slot->curl, CURLINFO_HTTPAUTH_AVAIL,
 				  &slot->results->auth_avail);
 
 		curl_easy_getinfo(slot->curl, CURLINFO_HTTP_CONNECTCODE,
 			&slot->results->http_connectcode);
+#ifdef GIT_CURL_HAVE_CURLINFO_RETRY_AFTER
+		{
+			curl_off_t retry_after;
+			if (curl_easy_getinfo(slot->curl, CURLINFO_RETRY_AFTER,
+					      &retry_after) == CURLE_OK && retry_after > 0)
+				slot->results->retry_after = (long)retry_after;
+		}
+#endif
 	}
 
 	/* Run callback if appropriate */
@@ -2286,15 +2295,6 @@ static int http_request(const char *url,
 
 	ret = run_one_slot(slot, &results);
 
-#ifdef GIT_CURL_HAVE_CURLINFO_RETRY_AFTER
-	if (ret == HTTP_RATE_LIMITED) {
-		curl_off_t retry_after;
-		if (curl_easy_getinfo(slot->curl, CURLINFO_RETRY_AFTER,
-				      &retry_after) == CURLE_OK && retry_after > 0)
-			results.retry_after = (long)retry_after;
-	}
-#endif
-
 	options->retry_after = results.retry_after;
 
 	if (options->content_type) {
@@ -2461,10 +2461,6 @@ static int http_request_recoverable(const char *url,
 	if (ret != HTTP_OK && ret != HTTP_REAUTH && ret != HTTP_RATE_LIMITED)
 		return ret;
 
-	/* If retries are disabled and we got a 429, fail immediately */
-	if (ret == HTTP_RATE_LIMITED && !http_max_retries)
-		return HTTP_ERROR;
-
 	if (options->effective_url && options->base_url) {
 		if (update_url_from_redirect(options->base_url,
 					     url, options->effective_url)) {
@@ -2474,7 +2470,8 @@ static int http_request_recoverable(const char *url,
 	}
 
 	while ((ret == HTTP_REAUTH && --i) ||
-	       (ret == HTTP_RATE_LIMITED && --rate_limit_retries)) {
+	       (ret == HTTP_RATE_LIMITED && http_max_retries > 0 &&
+		rate_limit_retries-- > 0)) {
 		long retry_delay = -1;
 		/*
 		 * The previous request may have put cruft into our output stream; we
@@ -2518,6 +2515,8 @@ static int http_request_recoverable(const char *url,
 		ret = http_request(url, result, target, options);
 	}
 	if (ret == HTTP_RATE_LIMITED) {
+		if (http_max_retries <= 0)
+			return HTTP_ERROR;
 		trace2_data_string("http", the_repository,
 				   "http/429-error", "retries-exhausted");
 		return HTTP_RATE_LIMITED;
diff --git a/t/lib-httpd/http-429.sh b/t/lib-httpd/http-429.sh
index 1a5d7987db..5537fb7ac4 100644
--- a/t/lib-httpd/http-429.sh
+++ b/t/lib-httpd/http-429.sh
@@ -32,12 +32,33 @@ repo_name="${repo_path%%/*}"
 safe_name=$(echo "${test_context}-${retry_after}-${repo_name}" | tr '/' '_' | tr -cd 'a-zA-Z0-9_-')
 state="http-429-state-${safe_name}"
 
-# Check if this is the first call (no state directory exists), or if
-# the retry-after-value is "permanent", which indicates a 429 must be
-# returned for every request (even if the state directory exists).
-if test "$retry_after" != permanent && ! mkdir "$state" 2>/dev/null
+max_fails=1
+case "$test_context" in
+	*-fail-2*) max_fails=2 ;;
+	*-fail-3*) max_fails=3 ;;
+esac
+
+should_fail=0
+if test "$retry_after" = permanent
+then
+	should_fail=1
+else
+	mkdir -p "$state" 2>/dev/null
+	i=1
+	while test $i -le $max_fails
+	do
+		if mkdir "$state/$i" 2>/dev/null
+		then
+			should_fail=1
+			break
+		fi
+		i=$((i + 1))
+	done
+fi
+
+if test $should_fail -eq 0
 then
-	# Already returned 429 once, forward to git-http-backend
+	# Already returned 429 max_fails times, forward to git-http-backend
 	# Set PATH_INFO to just the repo path (without retry-after value)
 	# Set GIT_PROJECT_ROOT so git-http-backend can find the repository
 	# Use exec to replace this process so git-http-backend gets the updated environment
diff --git a/t/t5584-http-429-retry.sh b/t/t5584-http-429-retry.sh
index a22007b2cf..d92a26893d 100755
--- a/t/t5584-http-429-retry.sh
+++ b/t/t5584-http-429-retry.sh
@@ -51,6 +51,27 @@ test_expect_success 'HTTP 429 with Retry-After is retried and succeeds' '
 	test_grep "refs/heads/" output
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'http.maxRetries=1 retries once and succeeds' '
+	test_config http.maxRetries 1 &&
+	git ls-remote "$HTTPD_URL/http_429/max-retries-one/none/repo.git" >output 2>err &&
+	test_grep "refs/heads/" output
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'http.maxRetries=2 fails after 3 failures and succeeds on 2 failures' '
+	test_config http.maxRetries 2 &&
+	test_must_fail git ls-remote "$HTTPD_URL/http_429/max-retries-two-fail-3/none/repo.git" 2>err &&
+	test_grep "rate limited" err &&
+	git ls-remote "$HTTPD_URL/http_429/max-retries-two-fail-2/none/repo.git" >output 2>err &&
+	test_grep "refs/heads/" output
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'Trace2 logs actual CURLINFO_RETRY_AFTER value instead of -1' '
+	test_config http.maxRetries 1 &&
+	GIT_TRACE2_EVENT="$(pwd)/trace-retry-after.event" \
+		git ls-remote "$HTTPD_URL/http_429/trace2-retry-after/1/repo.git" >output 2>err &&
+	test_grep "\"key\":\"http/429-retry-after\",\"value\":\"1\"" trace-retry-after.event
+'
+
 test_expect_success 'HTTP 429 without Retry-After uses configured default' '
 	# Enable retries and configure default delay
 	test_config http.maxRetries 3 &&

-- 
gitgitgadget
Previous: Ravi Mistry via GitGitGadgetNext: Ravi Mistry via GitGitGadget
Message 2 of 5 in “http: exponential backoff, configurable status codes, and post_rpc() retries”
  1. 0/4 http: exponential backoff, configurable status codes, and post_rpc() retriesRavi Mistry via GitGitGadget, Oct 31, 2026
  2. 1/4 http: fix retry count and Retry-After timingRavi Mistry via GitGitGadget, Oct 31, 2026
  3. 2/4 http: add exponential backoff without Retry-AfterRavi Mistry via GitGitGadget, Oct 31, 2026
  4. 3/4 http: add http.retryStatusCodes config optionRavi Mistry via GitGitGadget, Oct 31, 2026
  5. 4/4 remote-curl: retry transient HTTP errors in post_rpc()Ravi Mistry via GitGitGadget, Oct 31, 2026

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