paul@actrix.gen.nz (Paul Gillingwater) (05/20/91)
We have a problem with our NNTP, and would appreciate any helpful suggestions. Here's our configuration: 386/33MHz with ISC 2.2.1, running TCP/IP 1.2 on a WD 1003E LAN card. We're connected via a PCRouter (software running on another PC) to a local University Internet node, where we receive mail and news via SMTP and NNTP. We have 10 Mb of RAM. We're using NNTP version 1.5.11 (with patches for ISC UNIX). The problem is that two or three times a day, the NNTP appears to lock up. This also causes mail to stop, so it seems to be a problem that restricts a resource used by both SMTP and NNTP (perhaps streams buffers?) We've tried shutting down the LAN, then restarting it by changing the init level, but this does not seem to work. We know that the PCRouter is fine, because we can still TELNET or FTP over the LAN (sometimes). We can usually PING the PCRouter successfully too. This has meant that the only way we can restart the connection is to do a complete powerdown and reboot. Obviously, this isn't very pleasant. Can anyone (especially ISC support) suggest a possible cause for this, and perhaps a fix? For example, how can we find out if there is a memory leak, or perhaps a loss of streams buffers? Is there some way we can enable NNTP debug logging to trace where it fails? Another symptom is that there seem to be multiple NNTP processes left hanging around (we have a housekeeping script which kills these off from time to time). If they're not killed cleanly, perhaps some resource is being lost. This seems to be a result of occasional loss of connection to our feed. The active NNTP process stops, but doesn't go away. When more news comes through, a new NNTP process is started, but the old one doesn't go away. Here's a netstat -a: Active Internet connections (including servers) Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address (state) tcp 0 2259 192.100.53.17.nntp 130.195.5.20.6750 CLOSED tcp 0 0 *.smtp *.* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *.time *.* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *.daytime *.* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *.chargen *.* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *.discard *.* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *.echo *.* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *.domain *.* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *.finger *.* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *.nntp *.* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *.exec *.* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *.login *.* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *.shell *.* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *.telnet *.* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *.ftp *.* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *.* *.* CLOSED udp 0 0 *.1225 *.* udp 0 0 *.1030 *.* udp 0 0 *.1027 *.* udp 0 0 192.100.53.17.domain *.* udp 0 0 127.0.0.1.domain *.* udp 0 0 *.domain *.* udp 0 0 *.ntalk *.* udp 0 0 *.1025 *.* udp 0 0 *.1024 *.* udp 0 0 *.syslog *.* udp 0 0 *.* *.* Any help would be gratefully appreciated. -- Paul Gillingwater, paul@actrix.gen.nz
paul@actrix.gen.nz (Paul Gillingwater) (05/20/91)
In article <1991May19.230225.2544@actrix.gen.nz> paul@actrix.gen.nz (Paul Gillingwater) writes: > We have a problem with our NNTP, and would appreciate any helpful > suggestions. Here's a bit more info: occasionally we get this message appearing in mail. It looks like we have a slight problem with stream resources somewhere. Anyone like to suggest how we can tune some more in? From news@actrix.gen.nz Sun May 19 23:25:08 1991 Received: by actrix.gen.nz id <AA02897-5.65b/4.26>; Sun, 19 May 91 23:25:06 GMT Date: Sun, 19 May 91 23:25:06 GMT From: News administrator <news@actrix.gen.nz> Message-Id: <9105192325.AA02897@actrix.gen.nz> Nntpxmit: newshost.comp.vuw.ac.nz hello: Out of stream resources Apparently-To: news@actrix.gen.nz Status: RO ************************************************* Cron: The previous message is the standard output and standard error of one of your cron commands. -- Paul Gillingwater, paul@actrix.gen.nz
heiko@methan.chemie.fu-berlin.de (Heiko Schlichting) (05/20/91)
paul@actrix.gen.nz (Paul Gillingwater) writes: >We have a problem with our NNTP, and would appreciate any helpful >suggestions. We have a similar configuration and the same problems. >Here's our configuration: > >386/33MHz with ISC 2.2.1, running TCP/IP 1.2 on a WD 1003E LAN card. >We're connected via a PCRouter (software running on another PC) to a >local University Internet node, where we receive mail and news via >SMTP and NNTP. We have 10 Mb of RAM. > >We're using NNTP version 1.5.11 (with patches for ISC UNIX). We use a 386/33 MHz with WD 8003E and ISC 2.2 + NNTP 1.5.10. >The problem is that two or three times a day, the NNTP appears to >lock up. This also causes mail to stop, so it seems to be a problem >that restricts a resource used by both SMTP and NNTP (perhaps >streams buffers?) We have this problem too. Do a "telnet 127.0.0.1 119" only gives a "trying..." and nothing happens. There are similar problems with SMTP ("telnet 127.0.0.1 25") some times but it seems to be independant from NNTP problems. At one time NNTP locks up and at another SMTP locks. >We've tried shutting down the LAN, then restarting it by changing the >init level, but this does not seem to work. We know that the >PCRouter is fine, because we can still TELNET or FTP over the LAN >(sometimes). We can usually PING the PCRouter successfully too. >This has meant that the only way we can restart the connection is to >do a complete powerdown and reboot. If NNTP locks up we have to shutdown too but for the SMTP problems there is a workaround: kill all running "sendmail -bd" processes and restart the sendmail daemon with "/usr/lib/sendmail -bd -q10m". This works in most cases but you get a bind() error sometimes. In this case only a complete reboot helps. We use smail 3.1.20 - I don't know if this works with the ISC sendmail too. I think the problem is that there are a lot of TCP/IP process is the status CLOSED and they didn't terminate. This is *NOT* a special problem of NNTP. It is a general TCP/IP problem with ISC. Look at our netstat output - there are CLOSED processes by uucp (over TCP/IP), telnet, smtp and ftp too: Active Internet connections Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address (state) tcp 0 8 methan.chemie.fu.1660 ki1.chemie.fu-be.uucp CLOSED tcp 0 0 methan.chemie.fu.nntp crane.aa.ox.com.4337 LAST_ACK tcp 0 0 methan.chemie.fu.1484 athene.uni-pader.ftp-d LAST_ACK tcp 0 3 methan.chemie.fu.1430 taurus.tat.physi.4242 CLOSED tcp 0 1 methan.chemie.fu.1416 taurus.tat.physi.telne CLOSED tcp 0 8 methan.chemie.fu.1413 ki1.chemie.fu-be.uucp CLOSED tcp 0 0 methan.chemie.fu.telne gibb.math.fu-ber.2879 ESTABLISHED tcp 0 8 methan.chemie.fu.1215 ki1.chemie.fu-be.uucp CLOSED tcp 0 8 methan.chemie.fu.1162 ki1.chemie.fu-be.uucp CLOSED tcp 0 1846 methan.chemie.fu.telne troll.cs.tu-berl.2778 CLOSED And after a while - this will lock TCP/IP and makes a reboot necessary. Bye, heiko. -- |~| Heiko Schlichting | Freie Universitaet Berlin / \ heiko@fub.uucp | Institut fuer Organische Chemie /FUB\ heiko@methan.chemie.fu-berlin.de | Takustrasse 3 `---' phone +49 30 838-2677; fax ...-5163 | D-1000 Berlin 33 Germany