Close a socket created in handle of HttpRequestHandler

Question

i'm in mid of implementing a proxy using apache's HttpCore .
This is my HttpRequestHandler it is based on reverse proxy exampleby apache link :

static class ProxyHandler implements HttpRequestHandler  {

    private final HttpHost target;
private final HttpProcessor httpproc;
private final HttpRequestExecutor httpexecutor;
private final ConnectionReuseStrategy connStrategy;
private SocketFactory sf;
public ProxyHandler(
        final HttpHost target,
        final HttpProcessor httpproc,
        final HttpRequestExecutor httpexecutor,
        SocketFactory sf) {
    super();
    this.target = target;
    this.httpproc = httpproc;
    this.httpexecutor = httpexecutor;
    this.sf = sf;
    this.connStrategy = DefaultConnectionReuseStrategy.INSTANCE;
}

public void handle(
        final HttpRequest request,
        final HttpResponse response,
        final HttpContext context) throws HttpException, IOException {


    final int bufsize = 8 * 1024;
    URI uri = null;
    try {
        uri = new URI(request.getRequestLine().getUri());
    } catch (URISyntaxException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        return;
    }
    String domain = uri.getHost();
    HttpHost host = new HttpHost(domain, 80);
    System.out.println("host "+domain);

    DefaultBHttpClientConnection outconn = (DefaultBHttpClientConnection) context.getAttribute(HTTP_OUT_CONN);
    final Socket outsocket = sf.createSocket(host.getHostName(), this.target.getPort());
    outconn = new DefaultBHttpClientConnection(bufsize);
    outconn.bind(outsocket);
    System.out.println("My Outgoing connection to " + outsocket.getInetAddress());

    context.setAttribute(HTTP_OUT_CONN, outconn);
    final HttpClientConnection conn = (HttpClientConnection) context.getAttribute(
            HTTP_OUT_CONN);

    context.setAttribute(HttpCoreContext.HTTP_CONNECTION, conn);
    context.setAttribute(HttpCoreContext.HTTP_TARGET_HOST, this.target);

    System.out.println(">> Request URI: " + request.getRequestLine().getUri());

    // Remove hop-by-hop headers
    request.removeHeaders(HTTP.CONTENT_LEN);
    request.removeHeaders(HTTP.TRANSFER_ENCODING);
    request.removeHeaders(HTTP.CONN_DIRECTIVE);
    request.removeHeaders("Keep-Alive");
    request.removeHeaders("Proxy-Authenticate");
    request.removeHeaders("TE");
    request.removeHeaders("Trailers");
    request.removeHeaders("Upgrade");

    this.httpexecutor.preProcess(request, this.httpproc, context);
    final HttpResponse targetResponse = this.httpexecutor.execute(request, conn, context);
    this.httpexecutor.postProcess(response, this.httpproc, context);

    // Remove hop-by-hop headers
    targetResponse.removeHeaders(HTTP.CONTENT_LEN);
    targetResponse.removeHeaders(HTTP.TRANSFER_ENCODING);
    targetResponse.removeHeaders(HTTP.CONN_DIRECTIVE);
    targetResponse.removeHeaders("Keep-Alive");
    targetResponse.removeHeaders("TE");
    targetResponse.removeHeaders("Trailers");
    targetResponse.removeHeaders("Upgrade");

    response.setStatusLine(targetResponse.getStatusLine());
    response.setHeaders(targetResponse.getAllHeaders());
    response.setEntity(targetResponse.getEntity());

    System.out.println("<< Response: " + response.getStatusLine());

    final boolean keepalive = this.connStrategy.keepAlive(response, context);
    context.setAttribute(HTTP_CONN_KEEPALIVE, new Boolean(keepalive));
    outsocket.close();
}

}

i have changed the handler function and in it i create , DefaultBHttpClientConnection outconn based on the host in request URI.
As you can see i create a new socket (outsocket) using a SocketFactory . the problem i don't know how to close the socket .
i tried closing it at the end of handle() but then i would start receiving

I/O error: Socket closed

and the proxy stops working .
The Thread that calls the httpservice.handleRequest() is identical to the one in the example in the link (i can post it if needed, i didn't cause it would take space in the question ).

Answer 1

I've solved the problem. it was the line :

outconn = new DefaultBHttpClientConnection(bufsize);

inside the handler.

so every time the handler gets called it creates a new outconn . and the one thats setup before the call to :

httpservice.handleRequest(this.inconn, context);

even if it gets shutdown it won't close the socket since it is binded to a different copy of the outconn .

Answer 2

If you are making a proxy, the only time you should be closing connections is if you get an IOException on one side which closes that half of the conversation; at that point, it's safe to close the other side of the conversation