Take's 3 minutes for F5 to send request to Apache

Is the client issuing the request to the affected URL the same as the one that works fine? Are the requests similar? Also, are you sure it's not getting to the server for three minutes? Could it be that the response is not getting to the client?

 

 

I would be deeply suspicious of the validity of your HTTP request or response. The F5 will hold the request until it considers it finished. For instance, an HTTP GET request + header block must be terminated by a CRLFCRLF (0d0a0d0a hex) sequence. An HTTP 1.1 POST request must include a Content-Length header with the appropriate value of the following POST body. See RFC-2616 Section 4 for more information about what constitutes a valid message boundary in HTTP.

 

 

The three minute delay you are seeing sounds suspiciously like a timeout. One of the 'valid' ways of demarcating the 'end' of an HTTP request (or response) is by closing the TCP connection. If your client times out after three minutes, the F5 will then consider that a complete request and forward it to the server. The same goes for the server response.

 

 

Take a capture of the entire conversation between the affected client and the VIP. Look for proper separation (0d0a) between the request and response header and the request body (if there is one) and for the presence or absence of Content-length headers.

 

 

If this sounds too complicated, open a ticket, but I'm betting the problem will end up being with either your client or server.