Harden long-lived SSE and WebSocket connections

Address intermittent stalls seen after many hours by improving liveness detection and failure handling for both streaming channels.

WebSocket changes:
- Added periodic server ping frames and a read deadline refreshed by pong replies.
- On sender write/ping failure, explicitly close the underlying connection so clients promptly observe disconnect and reconnect instead of remaining half-open.

SSE changes:
- Excluded /events from gzip middleware and added X-Accel-Buffering: no to reduce proxy buffering risk.
- Stop the SSE loop on write errors for activity/keepalive frames so dead subscribers are cleaned up immediately.

Tests:
- Added regression coverage for gzip bypass on /events.
- Added regression coverage ensuring SSE handler exits and unsubscribes on write failure.
- Verified with make format && make check.

Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

webterm/server.go

@@ -25,6 +25,8 @@ import (
 const (
 	wsSendQueueMax         = 256
 	wsSendTimeout          = 2 * time.Second
+	wsReadTimeout          = 90 * time.Second
+	wsPingPeriod           = 30 * time.Second
 	stdinWriteTimeout      = 2 * time.Second
 	screenshotCacheSeconds = 300 * time.Millisecond
 	maxScreenshotCacheTTL  = 20 * time.Second
@@ -344,10 +346,27 @@ func (s *LocalServer) stopWSClient(routeKey string) {
 
 func (s *LocalServer) wsSender(client *wsClient) {
 	defer close(client.done)
-	for outbound := range client.send {
+	pingTicker := time.NewTicker(wsPingPeriod)
-		_ = client.conn.SetWriteDeadline(time.Now().Add(wsSendTimeout))
+	defer pingTicker.Stop()
-		if err := client.conn.WriteMessage(outbound.messageType, outbound.payload); err != nil {
+	for {
-			return
+		select {
+		case outbound, ok := <-client.send:
+			if !ok {
+				return
+			}
+			_ = client.conn.SetWriteDeadline(time.Now().Add(wsSendTimeout))
+			if err := client.conn.WriteMessage(outbound.messageType, outbound.payload); err != nil {
+				client.closed.Store(true)
+				_ = client.conn.Close()
+				return
+			}
+		case <-pingTicker.C:
+			deadline := time.Now().Add(wsSendTimeout)
+			if err := client.conn.WriteControl(websocket.PingMessage, nil, deadline); err != nil {
+				client.closed.Store(true)
+				_ = client.conn.Close()
+				return
+			}
 		}
 	}
 }
@@ -414,6 +433,10 @@ func (s *LocalServer) loggingMiddleware(next http.Handler) http.Handler {
 
 func (s *LocalServer) gzipMiddleware(next http.Handler) http.Handler {
 	return http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
+		if r.URL.Path == "/events" {
+			next.ServeHTTP(w, r)
+			return
+		}
 		if !strings.Contains(r.Header.Get("Accept-Encoding"), "gzip") {
 			next.ServeHTTP(w, r)
 			return
@@ -490,8 +513,10 @@ func (s *LocalServer) handleWebSocket(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
 		}
 	}
 
-	_ = conn.SetReadDeadline(time.Time{})
+	_ = conn.SetReadDeadline(time.Now().Add(wsReadTimeout))
-	conn.SetPongHandler(func(string) error { return nil })
+	conn.SetPongHandler(func(string) error {
+		return conn.SetReadDeadline(time.Now().Add(wsReadTimeout))
+	})
 
 	for {
 		messageType, payload, err := conn.ReadMessage()
@@ -741,6 +766,7 @@ func (s *LocalServer) handleEvents(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
 	w.Header().Set("Content-Type", "text/event-stream")
 	w.Header().Set("Cache-Control", "no-cache")
 	w.Header().Set("Connection", "keep-alive")
+	w.Header().Set("X-Accel-Buffering", "no")
 	flusher, ok := w.(http.Flusher)
 	if !ok {
 		http.Error(w, "streaming unsupported", http.StatusInternalServerError)
@@ -764,10 +790,14 @@ func (s *LocalServer) handleEvents(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
 		case <-notify:
 			return
 		case routeKey := <-channel:
-			_, _ = fmt.Fprintf(w, "event: activity\ndata: %s\n\n", routeKey)
+			if _, err := fmt.Fprintf(w, "event: activity\ndata: %s\n\n", routeKey); err != nil {
+				return
+			}
 			flusher.Flush()
 		case <-ticker.C:
-			_, _ = io.WriteString(w, ": keepalive\n\n")
+			if _, err := io.WriteString(w, ": keepalive\n\n"); err != nil {
+				return
+			}
 			flusher.Flush()
 		}
 	}

webterm/server_test.go

@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ package webterm
 
 import (
 	"encoding/json"
+	"errors"
 	"io"
 	"net/http"
 	"net/http/httptest"
@@ -13,6 +14,26 @@ import (
 	"github.com/gorilla/websocket"
 )
 
+type failingSSEWriter struct {
+	header   http.Header
+	writeErr error
+}
+
+func (w *failingSSEWriter) Header() http.Header {
+	if w.header == nil {
+		w.header = make(http.Header)
+	}
+	return w.header
+}
+
+func (w *failingSSEWriter) WriteHeader(int) {}
+
+func (w *failingSSEWriter) Write([]byte) (int, error) {
+	return 0, w.writeErr
+}
+
+func (w *failingSSEWriter) Flush() {}
+
 func newServerForTests(t *testing.T, withLanding bool) (*LocalServer, *httptest.Server, *syncSessionMap) {
 	t.Helper()
 	config := Config{
@@ -267,3 +288,60 @@ func TestMarkRouteActivityBroadcastsWithoutBlockingGlobalLock(t *testing.T) {
 		t.Fatalf("expected route activity broadcast")
 	}
 }
+
+func TestGzipMiddlewareSkipsEventsPath(t *testing.T) {
+	server := NewLocalServer(Config{}, ServerOptions{})
+	handler := server.gzipMiddleware(http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, _ *http.Request) {
+		_, _ = io.WriteString(w, "ok")
+	}))
+	req := httptest.NewRequest(http.MethodGet, "/events", nil)
+	req.Header.Set("Accept-Encoding", "gzip")
+	rr := httptest.NewRecorder()
+	handler.ServeHTTP(rr, req)
+	if got := rr.Header().Get("Content-Encoding"); got != "" {
+		t.Fatalf("expected no gzip encoding for SSE path, got %q", got)
+	}
+	if rr.Body.String() != "ok" {
+		t.Fatalf("unexpected body: %q", rr.Body.String())
+	}
+}
+
+func TestHandleEventsReturnsOnWriteError(t *testing.T) {
+	server := NewLocalServer(Config{}, ServerOptions{})
+	req := httptest.NewRequest(http.MethodGet, "/events", nil)
+	writer := &failingSSEWriter{writeErr: errors.New("broken pipe")}
+	done := make(chan struct{})
+	go func() {
+		server.handleEvents(writer, req)
+		close(done)
+	}()
+
+	deadline := time.Now().Add(250 * time.Millisecond)
+	for {
+		server.mu.RLock()
+		count := len(server.sseSubscribers)
+		server.mu.RUnlock()
+		if count == 1 {
+			break
+		}
+		if time.Now().After(deadline) {
+			t.Fatalf("expected SSE subscriber to be registered")
+		}
+		time.Sleep(5 * time.Millisecond)
+	}
+
+	server.markRouteActivity("route-a")
+
+	select {
+	case <-done:
+	case <-time.After(2 * time.Second):
+		t.Fatalf("handleEvents did not exit after write error")
+	}
+
+	server.mu.RLock()
+	count := len(server.sseSubscribers)
+	server.mu.RUnlock()
+	if count != 0 {
+		t.Fatalf("expected SSE subscriber cleanup after write error, got %d", count)
+	}
+}