Forum Posting Problem

[gnif]

Hey gnif: Maybe it would be better to add META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache" to head section on the default 504-Gateway Timeout HTML page. Maybe add a meta http-equiv="refresh" content="300" tag too. 

You are quite correct, this however has not been a priority to tune as we have been looking for the root cause of the issue. I will adjust this a little later tonight, in the meantime I am preparing to remove apache from the equation and handle requests directly with Nginx, this should both improve performance and assist in determining where any potential bottleknecks are.

[gdewitte]

Quote from: gdewitte on Yesterday at 01:37:38 AM

I'm consistently getting a "504-Gateway timeout" when I try to "Show unread posts…" Anyone else having this problem, or could it be something hosed on my PC? All the other links to various posts seem to work just fine.

My solution so far: cleared browsing history on Google Chrome and everything worked. May be unique to my system and Google Chrome, as all links worked fine when I tried Firefox.

[gnif]

Quote from: gdewitte on Yesterday at 01:37:38 AM

I'm consistently getting a "504-Gateway timeout" when I try to "Show unread posts…" Anyone else having this problem, or could it be something hosed on my PC? All the other links to various posts seem to work just fine.

My solution so far: cleared browsing history on Google Chrome and everything worked. May be unique to my system and Google Chrome, as all links worked fine when I tried Firefox.

I am preparing to remove apache from the equation and handle requests directly with Nginx, this should both improve performance and assist in determining where any potential bottleknecks are.

[alimirjamali]

I am preparing to remove apache from the equation and handle requests directly with Nginx, this should both improve performance and assist in determining where any potential bottleknecks are.

Hey gnif. I see you have enabled CloudFlare cashing again . It is not just DNS anymore .

So you are going to ditch Apache in favor of Nginx . I am happy that I am not in your position to translate all of those nasty .htaccess and Apache VirtualHost config files . You are going to test it on a local copy before applying them?  right? We have some EEVBlog Forumoholics who will be pissed off if Forum is down more than 1 day .

<ConspiracyTheory>
Maybe Dave is DDoSed ? Dave's WordPress Blog and SMF Forum are popular but not that much popular which Apache could not handle. There are less than 2000 Online Users+Guests on Forum. Considering that SMF User online time threshold is 15 minutes (by default) which implies that they do not fetch data simultaneously, Apache should be able to handle them easily.

2000 users / 15 minutes / 60 seconds * Approx. 20 requests per users = Approx. 44 requests per second = piece of cake for Apache.

Even before the #FTDIGate, Dave had made many foes. Maybe if you double check IP of users, you might see 90% from some FTDI server (What Da FTDI).
</ConspiracyTheory>

Good luck.

[gnif]

Hey gnif. I see you have enabled CloudFlare cashing again . It is not just DNS anymore .

This was Dave's decision to do so, it has nothing to do with the gateway issues.

So you are going to ditch Apache in favor of Nginx . I am happy that I am not in your position to translate all of those nasty .htaccess and Apache VirtualHost config files . You are going to test it on a local copy before applying them?  right? We have some EEVBlog Forumoholics who will be pissed of if Forum is down more than 1 day .

Already translated, and live, see the new thread.

<ConspiracyTheory>
Maybe Dave is DDoSed ? Dave's WordPress Blog and SMF Forum are popular but not that much popular which Apache could not handle. There are less than 2000 Online Users+Guests on Forum. Considering that SMF User online time threshold is 15 minutes (by default) which implies that they do not fetch data simultaneously, Apache should be able to handle them easily.

2000 users / 15 minutes / 60 seconds * Approx. 20 requests per users = Approx. 44 requests per second = piece of cake for Apache.

Even before the #FTDIGate, Dave had made many foes. Maybe if you double check IP of users, you might see 90% from some FTDI server (What Da FTDI).
</ConspiracyTheory>

No DDoS and we rate limit per IP anyway, so they would need to have way more servers then you would expect to saturate the server. Since this is a cPanel server it is tuned to host multiple small to medium sized sites for mass reselling, not one large site. It builds Apache in such a way as to suit this purpose and in this instance it is a hinderance. Moving away from Apache to Nginx + PHP-FPM allows us to escape the bounds of the cPanel paradigm .

[T3sl4co1l]

Been getting a "session timeout, please attempt to reply again" message lately.  Yes, I write overly long posts, but still...

Tim

It's back

[gnif]

Been getting a "session timeout, please attempt to reply again" message lately.  Yes, I write overly long posts, but still...

Tim

It's back

I will adjust how memcached is storing sessions and increase the timeout, this should correct this.

[T3sl4co1l]

Thanks!

[EvilGeniusSkis]

could someone have been using something more sophisticated than a simple DDoS, such as SlowLoris or RUDY? 

[gnif]

could someone have been using something more sophisticated than a simple DDoS, such as SlowLoris or RUDY?

Certainly not, logs clearly indicated that Apache was running out of connections well before server load was an issue, Apache is not exposed to the internet as it was behind Nginx which was the reverse proxy. If it was a DoS attack such as SlowLoris or RUDY Nginx would also have stopped responding.

Put simply, Apache is software that should be put down, it was good in it's day, but it is well and truly past it's expiration date. Please do not think that I believe this due to a limited understanding of Apache, I am extremely well versed with it, and I am the maintainer/developer of mod_rpaf which is in use by hundreds if not thousands of large scale deployments around the globe, so I know Apache from a code perspective, not just a deployment perspective.

[alimirjamali]

could someone have been using something more sophisticated than a simple DDoS, such as SlowLoris or RUDY?

FTDI produces many chips for Android smart phones. They could have turned millions of Android phones to zombies and attacked Dave's forum in retaliation to the #FTDIgate
p.s. I know that it is technically impossible; However, conspiracy theories are simply cool .

[gnif]

could someone have been using something more sophisticated than a simple DDoS, such as SlowLoris or RUDY?

FTDI produces many chips for Android smart phones. They could have turned millions of Android phones to zombies and attacked Dave's forum in retaliation to the #FTDIgate
p.s. I know that it is technically impossible; However, conspiracy theories are simply cool .

Haha, you literally made me LOL.

In all this was a good exercise as the server is now running better then ever for pretty much everyone, even those of us who are over the pond and have to already deal with large latency due to the transmission delays.

[EvilGeniusSkis]

this whole thing reminds me of something my multimedia teacher would say

Technology will make a fool out of everyone.

the reason I say this is, to me anyway, it seem that the problem was fixed without anyone figuring out what the problem was exactly. am i right?

also is there a forum features wishlist thread anywhere?

[gnif]

the reason I say this is, to me anyway, it seem that the problem was fixed without anyone figuring out what the problem was exactly. am i right?

I have very clearly stated what the problem was, Apache simply is not capable of serving the sheer number of PHP requests the website has as it is archaic in its design and can not take advantage of modern hardware correctly.

[atferrari]

Hola gnif

I want to stop receiving notifications of new replies to some threads.
I clicked on "UNNOTIFY" at the top of them but I still receive notifications.

One of the threads is this very one.

Gracias for any help.