Web interface stops responding after a while

I'm also having this problem with my duo. The web server just stops responding frequently and randomly. I've updated to the latest firmware 4.1.8 when it was released as has been more stable, but just noticed it's down currently. As others have mentioned FTP and shares are still available just no web server, which runs my web site or admin interface via direct URL of via radar. Up to now I've been shutting the drive down using the blue button and restarting. I'll try the pull LAN cable restart method now....

Can anyone advise why this is happening or help me get my web site more stable.

@dazman,
Sorry to hear your web server is dying. Mine has been rock-solid since I upgraded my Duo to 4.1.8.
Have you looked through the httpd logs? As I reported above, I observed a SIGTERM (Linux kernel message telling the process to terminate) in the logs whenever the process had died. I was about to go looking through other logs to see if there were error messages happening at the same date/time as the SIGTERMs, but I stopped my investigation after moving to 4.1.8.

You might check your httpd log and see if SIGTERM is what's killing the process. If so, then the next step s to figure out where the SIGTERM is coming from...

Dave

The advice to unplug LAN instead of shutting down works a treat. I do see SIGTERM shutdown in the suggested log. The log is pretty large and not overly happy with the content. Looks like attacks. Not too sure. Virgin media turned off my routers firewall to improve performance of my router when I had serious speed issues. Just realized that the issues where in the end found to be a low signal on my cable, which has now been doubled and resolved the speed issues so now I've turned the firewall and flood protection back on. Hopefully this might help ?

Thanks for the advice.

Regards Daren

@dazman,
IMHO, Virgin is incompetent if they think turning off firewall is a solution to speed problems. However, assuming that your router implements NAT (it has to, so you can have your NAS and a PC or three on your LAN), it's unlikely that external attacks could have reached the Duo. The Duo's IP address would not be routable from your router's WAN interface. All of which to say that I don't think external internet traffic could be the root cause of your problem. Unless you have configured port forwarding to permit WAN access to the Duo's IP address.

(parenthetically, you should run a ShieldsUp scan at grc.com to verify that your router is indeed blocking external connections).

If you see SIGTERM messages in the httpd log, that suggests some other other process on the Duo is deliberately causing the shutdown of the httpd process. I don't know enough about the inner workings of ReadyNAS to know what logs you should look at. Perhaps Yoh-dah or Chirpa will chime in with a suggestion.

Meanwhile, you could also use the shell command provided earlier in this thread to restart the httpd process. That's what I did. I wrote a little script that would send the restart command off to the Duo whenever I found the web interface not responding. To do so, you'll have to enable ssh access with one of the ReadyNAS add-ons.

Good luck,
Dave

Web server down again, pants! That's the first time its gone down in one 24 hour period.

I am port forwarding http to readyNAS as I'm running my web site directly off the NAS. I've been thinking about installing ssh, but I though Netgear could refuse support if it was installed.

Will look at doing the grc.com scan as suggested.

There were several SIGTERM messages in the log previously and suspect I'll see some more after the server restart in a min.

The NAS web server is quite slow at the best of times, but if it doesn't stay stable I'll have to revert back to using a server running IIS, which I really don't want to do.

Daren

@dazman,
I didn't realize you were using yr Duo as a public web server ( vs just accessing FrontView). Hence, it's exposed to the big bad internet and certainly could be subject to nasty traffic.

Indeed, I've never thought of using it as a general-purpose web server. I can well imagine that the folks at Netgear didn't anticipate nor thoroughly test this config. My experience with the httpd has been purely with FrontView. Would appreciate hints/tips on how you configured it as a web server. I have no need to do so as I have a Ubuntu box, but I'm curious to see how you did it.

One other thought - have you considered adding more RAM to the Duo? I doubt it would make it any faster, but might give httpd more room to run and thus reduce the frequency of httpd shutdowns.
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=18430

Yeah, running my personal web page off it, nothing commercial or overly complex. I've got my own domain and point it at the NAS. Web site totally created on, uploaded and edited from an iPad!!

Web server speed ain't brilliant but there's a lot of graphics to upload and I only have 1mb upload speed. Its slightly slower than running on a server running IIS. But for my purposes it's ok. (www thedazman com).

Ive thought about extra RAM if this is going to improve performance of the web server then I'm up for that. Haven't looked in to costs or where to obtain as yet

Regarding using NAS as a public web server I'm sure it's a documented feature as standard and supported. In standard file protocols just tick HTTP and point it at the share containing your web site, as long as you have the default.HTML or index.HTML files in the root of your share and you got your router port forwarding HTTP to your NAS it just works.

I've got ssh working now and I'll monitor the server, hopefully it won't require restarting more than once a week. My UNIX is a bit rusty but I recon I can find some other uses for ssh.

Thanks for the RAM suggestion, I'll look into that.

Regards Daren

Doh! Never thought of sticking an index.html file into a ReadyNAS web share. Of course - so simple. I've never enabled http - just use the Duo for backups and local file store. You've given me something to think about. Thanks.

If your server continues to die randomly, you could set up a chron job to send a restart command to the Duo (over ssh) occasionally from one of your other machines. Or even from the Duo itself if you're so inclined.

For hours of ssh fun on your iPad, check out the 'Prompt' app from Panic.
http://www.panic.com/blog/2011/04/intro ... h-for-ios/

Cheers.

Glad you liked it, web still work in progress. I'm a beta tester for the ipad app that created it. HTML Egg it's all drag and drop easy peasy, it's a bit basic interface wise, but does the job if you have a lot of patience.

What was the page performance like for you?

Daz

I was going to go for prompt, it was a bit more pricey, but had goodcreviews. Opted for a cheaper one for now.

If it continues to drop I'll press Netgear for some help.

Thanks, Daz