The company hosting my site has sent me a couple emails now in regard to the file "postings.cgi" It seems that they've had to kill a few instances of the program that just keep running and running and using resources. Today they killed 5 instances of the cgi. With hundreds of posts being made every day I don't quite understand why only 5 would go wild. It is either a combination of things, or a rarely used part of the postings.cgi form.
Anyone have any idea on how I would troubleshoot something like this?
Do your users have a tendancy to post messages with a lot of images or smilies?
------------------ Charles Capps, Moderator, Post-Install Troubleshooting PLEASE NOTE: Due to time limitations, I do not provide UBB support via email.
Not personally <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> but yes... members of the site do tend to use a lot of smilies and images. And yes, that is the correct URL for the UBB.
I'm working with the ISP to try to track when the runaway processes start so I can check through the logs to see what topic was posted, but am really stuck on how to troubleshoot something like this.
Could the smilies or inclusion of images be the problem?
The site is currently running with the default 8 images/post (which is actually 7).
I recently moved to 5.47a (about 3 weeks ago) and that is when the problems began.
Thanks Charles...
Rob
[This message has been edited by EaterOfDogs (edited 11-16-2000).]
Did the problems co-incide with the code modifications you made? I visited the URL above and things are changed from the stock scripts whihc means there's no way we can troubleshoot the runaway process.
------------------ Michael Farris OpenTopic Product Manager + UBB Enthusiast
The UBB went live with the modifications. All the modifications in place existed within my previous version save the News Fader and the extra smilies. The news fader does not involve postings.cgi so I know it is not that. I've checked the smilies script and if it a simple addition of HTML to the code. No looping.
I understand that by modifying the main code of the UBB I've "voided" any type of help from Infopop (it would be impossible and not economical for you to have to troubleshoot everyone's hack attempt) but what I was hoping to learn was how I may be able to troubleshoot something like this myself.
I'm sure that when coding the UBB you've come across run away script or loops of some sort... I'm unsure how I can troubleshoot this type of event in CGI. Give me C, or VB or even assembler and I can follow the processes as they execute line by line... but how do I work with CGI?
I may comment out various hacks and see if the problem resolves at which point I will have identified the culprit. A "Brute force" method, but it could very well work.
I've also ask the hosting company to provide me with the exact start time of the runaway process so that I may look it up in my log files to identify the post/thread that caused the problem. I'd love to be able to recreate this. It's bizarre that only 3-4 runaway processes start over a week's period considering the hundreds of posts that are made. It leads me to believe that it could be a function not often used (reply to, check IP, delete, move topic) but am not sure.
Are there any tools or ways I can trouble shoot something like this?
The mods you've made to your board are mostly prepackaged... They WILL add load, but not to postings.
Right now, I'm guessing that the image limitation code that's in postings is causing these problems.
As you're comfortable with modifying your UBB....
Check for the comment: #check for excess images-
There will be three instances of that, and an if block underneath all three. Remove or comment out the if block.
Hopefully that should do the trick.
Do *NOT* increase the number of images that are filtered, that will only make the pattern WORSE.
If this doesn't help, then I'll have to ask you to revert to a stock UBB for a while to see if it's the hacks that are causing problems.
------------------ Charles Capps, Moderator, Post-Install Troubleshooting PLEASE NOTE: Due to time limitations, I do not provide UBB support via email.
[This message has been edited by Charles Capps (edited 11-17-2000).]
Even with increased traffic due to recent advertising, we have not has 1 instance of the postings.cgi script running away SINCE commenting out the picture check routine.
The image regex was entirely rewritten in 5.47b and will be far easier on your server. It's also adjustable now <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Is there a way to find out what caused the problem? If so, how would I go about finding it?
Is there an image size limitation? I think I could remove all images from the board (once Tera-byte restarts the cgi function, so that the site is accessible again)
Why, oh why do people me-too, especially when they've already opened another thread in another forum for the issue?
Thread closed.
------------------ Charles Capps, Moderator, Post-Install Troubleshooting PLEASE NOTE: Due to time limitations, I do not provide UBB support via email.
