Timeout in node.js request

Question

I wonder how does node.js request module work in regard to timeout parameter.

What happens after timeout time period have passed? I.e:

var request = require('request');
var options = {
    url: Theurl,
    timeout: 300000
};

request(options, function(error, resp, body) {...

What happens after 300000? Does request try to request the url again or not?

I also found that Linux Kernel have a default 20 sec TCP socket connection timeout. (http://www.sekuda.com/overriding_the_default_linux_kernel_20_second_tcp_socket_connect_timeout) Does it mean that timeout option in request will be max 20 sec (if I dont change the Linux Kernel timeout), regardless of what I set in options? I use Ubuntu.

Answer 1

From the readme of the request package:

Note that if the underlying TCP connection cannot be established, 
the OS-wide TCP connection timeout will overrule the timeout option

So in your case, the request will be aborted after 20 sec. The request won't try to request the url again (even if the timeout is set to a lower value than 20000). You would have to write your own logic for this or use another package, such as requestretry.

Example:

var options = {
    url: 'http://www.gooooerererere.com/',
    timeout: 5000
}

var maxRequests = 5;

function requestWithTimeout(attempt){
    request(options, function(error,response,body){
        if(error){
            console.log(error);

            if(attempt==maxRequests)
                return;
            else
                requestWithTimeout(attempt+1);
        }
        else {
            //do something with result
        }
    });
}

requestWithTimeout(1);

You can also check for a specific error message, such as ETIMEDOUT, with

if(error.code == [ERROR_MESSAGE])