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Server Times Out, Site Not Served

Discussion in 'Windows Server System' started by natcolley, 2007/09/21.

  1. 2007/09/21
    natcolley

    natcolley Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    I have an IIS 6.0 server on x.x.x.1 which times out without producing my site. I have an Apache server on x.x.x.2 which runs fine. I have the rest of my home network behind a Firebox hardware firewall appliance on x.x.x.3.

    In addition to the time out problem, when I try accessing the IIS website from inside my network it keeps coming to the log in for my hardware firewall which the affected webserver isn’t even connected to, although they do share a hub to the modem. I’m thinking this different result from inside vs outside are two different problems, but I can’t figure out either one.

    After much searching the net, I found the HTTPERR log and there are a slew of errors there with 400 - hostname. So, thinking maybe I had found something, I changed the host header on the default website to specify the subdomain. This server only handles the subdomain, the domain itself is on the Apache server. But that change did not work so I came here hoping for insight.

    There is a connection idle message in the error log when referencing 443, but the connection timeout is set to 120 seconds and the keep alives is checked, so what else am I supposed to do?

    thx.
     
    natcolley,
    #1
  2. 2007/09/21
    ReggieB

    ReggieB Inactive Alumni

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    What are you serving via the web server? A .net application, PHP pages or just static content?

    If you are serving dynamic content, the problem could be that there is something in the coding or configuration of the web app, that is taking too long or hanging. To rule out this, I suggest you put a very simple file in your web site root and see if you can access that. For example:

    test.html
    Code:
    <html>
<head>
<title>Test page</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Test page</h1>
<p>This is a test page</p>
</body>
</html>
    If that won't load, I expect it is either a core IIS problem, or something either in the way of the connection or diverting the connection.

    When you access the page internally, do you use the same URL as that which you use externally? Can you access the page via the internal IP of your server?
     
    ReggieB,
    #2


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  4. 2007/09/21
    natcolley

    natcolley Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Hi Reggie, thanks for replying.

    The application is written in C and I was told it required windows so it probably is asp, but I really don't know. The software maker has changed hands and I am going to try and reach the new people today to see what if anything they will do to help me.

    I don't know if this is related or not, but the web app, which starts automatically, is now showing up in my application event logs as having reached the maximum number of retries, and I see it has stopped running. I don't know why this is happening, however, I think this is a separate problem as there is some static html in front of the web app, and that's what I am expecting to see first and it is not coming up.

    Your suggestion made me want to take a close look at wwwroot, and I noticed a couple of things. 1) there is no index.htm in there, but there is a default.htm; 2) the index.htm that I am expecting to see come up, and which used to come up, is in a subdirectory. Does IIS automatically look for an index in the subdirectories if it isn't in wwwroot? That would explain why it goes there, but not of course why it times out.

    If I navigate to c:\inetpub\wwwroot\mysite\index.htm, it comes up in IE just fine. So does default.htm (the sbs 2003 welcome page). But I decided to follow thru and made the test.html file as you suggested anyway, and wouldn't you know, when I tried accessing it using the domain name over the internet from another machine on a different IP, it times out!!! But when I put in the IP address, x.x.x.1/test.html, that comes up over the internet just fine! But when I do the same thing with default, x.x.x.1/default.htm, that times out! What the heck is going on here?!

    So then I tried it again with my laptop from behind the firebox. This is on yet another static IP and is the scenario I referred to in my first post in which it goes to the firebox log in and not the web site. So when I tried accessing test.html with the domain name I once again got the firebox log in just as I did last night. However, when I put in the website's static ip, x.x.x.1/test.html comes up just fine! But x.x.x.1/default.htm still times out!?!!?

    I'm sure this is an important clue, but I can only guess at the meaning. It's almost as if only new pages that I create like test.html will come up and all the old ones time out. How could that be?

    Maybe more info than you wanted, but your time and insights are greatly appreciated.
     
    natcolley,
    #3
  5. 2007/09/22
    natcolley

    natcolley Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    natcolley,
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  6. 2007/09/22
    ReggieB

    ReggieB Inactive Alumni

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    Interesting link, but I don't think it tells us how you fixed your problem. Reading between the lines, it looks like you may have been confusing your internal IP address with your external IP address, or similar name resolution issue.

    However, glad to see that your problem is fixed.

    BTW, default.htm should act in the same way as index.htm. Both are accepted default site page names.
     
    ReggieB,
    #5
  7. 2007/09/23
    natcolley

    natcolley Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    The article explains that the router maintains an 'ARP cache', which remembers where resources were on the network, which is why it couldn't find them once they'd been moved. The resolution was to power cycle the modem so as to flush the cache.
     
    natcolley,
    #6
  8. 2007/09/23
    ReggieB

    ReggieB Inactive Alumni

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    Thank you for that clarification. ARP caches normally have a very short life (seconds at most) precisely so as to avoid this sort of thing. Therefore your problem is specific to your router, and its non-standard design. I'm glad you found the problem as it would be very difficult to diagnose without that documentation - good find!
     
    ReggieB,
    #7

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