option http-server-close on HAProxy haproxy-1.5-dev19 will result in Connection: close header sent in response

I basically have the following issue: whenever I add

option http-server-close 

to the haproxy config (either in frontend or backend section), haproxy will send a Connection: close header in the response - which is exactly the opposite of what is supposed to do.

I am basically trying to get client TCP connections persisted through keep-alive, but since this doesn't seem to work I can't have that unless I use the default (keep-alive) mode, which will do the same for the server-side - and I don't want that.

Any solutions? Is this a bug? Or am I missing something?

No, I believe this is expected.

option http-server-close 

Will close the connection from HAProxy to the backend, but will keep the connection alive between the client and the haproxy-server.

HAProxy will close the connection if/when the timeout is hit, so you might want to tweak the timeout http-keep-alive and timeout client options.