I am at my wit’s end as to what to do about this. All of a sudden, I can no longer upload files through FW to the server. Nor, can I access the server through an FTP app. In fact, I can’t even open in the site in a browser. But everyone else can! What is happening?
I have been back and forth with the IT person for the company, because they are getting ready to move to Google Apps, but he said he hasn’t done anything yet, and he can access everything.
I Googled (and Googled and Googled) it and decided it must be a problem with DNS caching. I cleared all my caches and typed in dscacheutil -flushcache in my Terminal to flush the DNS cache. No change.
I tried using the IP address instead of the ftp.domainname.com for FTP, but I still couldn’t get in. I want to throw myself on the floor and kick and scream.
Have you contacted the hosting company about this? Your server might
have crashed. What response do you get when you type in the address to
the server? Is a “host not found” or does the site try to load and
just spin and spin? What happens if you open Applications/Utilities/
Terminal.app and type in the following commands? (each one followed by
a return)
Naturally, fill in the demo stuff above with your real details.
Walter
On Aug 23, 2010, at 5:03 PM, Robin Stark wrote:
I am at my wit’s end as to what to do about this. All of a sudden, I
can no longer upload files through FW to the server. Nor, can I
access the server through an FTP app. In fact, I can’t even open in
the site in a browser. But everyone else can! What is happening?
This means that your computer is able to reach the server without any
trouble. These times are a little long, but nothing too worrisome.
Here’s another stupid terminal trick to see if you can reach the Web
site from your computer:
telnet yourserverip 80
The server may respond with a couple of lines of gibberish, ending in
Escape character is ‘^]’.
Then type:
GET /
(press return after each of these commands)
You should see a Terminal screen full of HTML code after the second
command above, and if you don’t, the error message might be instructive.
By the way, sorry about the ping command running on and on like that.
I forgot to give you the -c parameter, which restricts it to a certain
number of tries. Here’s what you would do in that case: ping -c 5 www.apple.com
Walter
On Aug 23, 2010, at 7:34 PM, Robin Stark wrote:
64 bytes from 205.234.78.159: icmp_seq=130 ttl=47 time=93.211 ms
64 bytes from 205.234.78.159: icmp_seq=131 ttl=47 time=95.666 ms
64 bytes from 205.234.78.159: icmp_seq=132 ttl=47 time=92.672 ms
64 bytes from 205.234.78.159: icmp_seq=133 ttl=47 time=94.357 ms
64 bytes from 205.234.78.159: icmp_seq=134 ttl=47 time=94.029 ms
64 bytes from 205.234.78.159: icmp_seq=135 ttl=47 time=92.065 ms
64 bytes from 205.234.78.159: icmp_seq=136 ttl=47 time=96.000 ms
64 bytes from 205.234.78.159: icmp_seq=137 ttl=47 time=91.935 ms
64 bytes from 205.234.78.159: icmp_seq=138 ttl=47 time=91.864 ms
He then said, “Well, maybe the server is blocking your IP address
for repeated login attempts.” He then said he was going to “try
something” and came back and told me to try to login again, and
voila, it worked.
I had a similar problem when trying to access a client’s site and
cPanel and was given the same response. I never got a clear
explanation as to what exactly happened. It was curious.
Unix servers generally run for years at a time without restarting, and
months between patches. It may be very true that he didn’t change
anything, but if you get used to everything just working that well,
for that long, you may be too lazy or lulled to check something
obvious, like maybe Apache is balled up in the corner whimpering to
itself, or similar. He may have put you off because he figured the
problem was on your end, not his “perfect” server. And his dashboard
may have said everything was green, too. But Apache can be running
just fine, and refuse all connections because it’s used up all of its
memory and can’t spawn a new worker. I actually did that to the OLL
server last month, twice in a row. Luckily, that server has a “robot
overlord” script that can reboot the entire server in an emergency,
the equivalent of pulling the plug out of the wall. I’m betting that
the ftpd process was stuck somehow. You could see the server, the
network ran just fine, but you couldn’t get it to answer on port 22.
Walter
On Aug 23, 2010, at 9:57 PM, Todd wrote:
On Aug 23, 2010, at 8:36 PM, Robin Stark wrote:
He then said, “Well, maybe the server is blocking your IP address
for repeated login attempts.” He then said he was going to “try
something” and came back and told me to try to login again, and
voila, it worked.
I had a similar problem when trying to access a client’s site and
cPanel and was given the same response. I never got a clear
explanation as to what exactly happened. It was curious.
Interesting. Well, if this happens to me again, I’m going to say:
“Are you sure nothing has changed? Because, even though your
dashboard
might say everything is green, an Apache server can be running just
fine and
still refuse all connections because it’s used up all of its memory
and
can’t spawn a new worker. Unless you have a “robot overlord” script
that can
reboot the entire server in an emergency, you might not know that
your Apache is balled up in the corner whimpering to itself. I think
your ftpd process is stuck somehow. Could you please double check?”
Of course, I won’t know what I’m talking about, but they might THINK
I do.
Robin Stark
On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 9:17 PM, Walter Lee Davis email@hiddenwrote:
Unix servers generally run for years at a time without restarting,
and
months between patches. It may be very true that he didn’t change
anything,
but if you get used to everything just working that well, for that
long, you
may be too lazy or lulled to check something obvious, like maybe
Apache is
balled up in the corner whimpering to itself, or similar. He may
have put
you off because he figured the problem was on your end, not his
“perfect”
server. And his dashboard may have said everything was green, too.
But
Apache can be running just fine, and refuse all connections because
it’s
used up all of its memory and can’t spawn a new worker. I actually
did that
to the OLL server last month, twice in a row. Luckily, that server
has a
“robot overlord” script that can reboot the entire server in an
emergency,
the equivalent of pulling the plug out of the wall. I’m betting
that the
ftpd process was stuck somehow. You could see the server, the
network ran
just fine, but you couldn’t get it to answer on port 22.
Walter
On Aug 23, 2010, at 9:57 PM, Todd wrote:
On Aug 23, 2010, at 8:36 PM, Robin Stark wrote:
He then said, "Well, maybe the server is blocking your IP address
for
repeated login attempts." He then said he was going to “try
something” and
came back and told me to try to login again, and voila, it worked.
I had a similar problem when trying to access a client’s site and
cPanel
and was given the same response. I never got a clear explanation
as to what
exactly happened. It was curious.
