Web pages stop serving

[mlindal]

What can cause this:

The web companion stops serving the web pages for no apparent reason. It was working nicely for 5 months and then last week with no upgrades, changes, or modifications on our Mac G3 running FM Pro 5.03 unlimited (web compan 5.06) - the web pages stop working.

The log has a few attempts to access "robots.txt" but that shouldn't stop the web companion.

So can the web companion be hacked? There seems to be a few of our machines under attack lately - but we are a Mac and shouldn't be affected.

When I arrive in the morning - FM works perfectly, the TCP connections on the machine are good. The web companion shows it is on - but we cannot access it via the web.

The fix is to restart FM and then it works for another couple of hours.

What could do this?

[Arin]

I've never heard of that before, which version of the OS are you running?

If you're running MacOS 8.6 - 9.2 and it's not due to some outside attack (which seems very unlikley with 'classic'), I'd guess that backing things up, reinstalling your OS, and FMP Unlim would take care of the problem.

--first you might want to try running Norton, then reinstalling FMP before you go to a 'Full' re-install.

[mlindal]

We are running System 9.1 - Mac G3. FM is served on an NT box.

We have made no changes to our system to indicate it is us at fault - in fact FM is still working - I have access to the databases, Internet etc. Just the web pages can't be accessed.

Last week the IT guys put a patch on the NT box to stop code red attacks. Could there be some interaction stopping Web companion?

[Anatoli]

Code Red is affecting FM WC as I've learned somewhere else on this forum.

[mlindal]

There is nothing in the Web Companion Log to indicate a Code Red attack.

The NT server is protected against a code Red attack - but could this protection lead to the stopping of the service between Web Companion and the FM server?

[Vaughan]

Basic stuff: is the hard disk getting full?

[mlindal]

The hard disk on the Mac G3 is 10 GB of which 600MB have been used. So lots of room... I have even allocated 100MB of Ram to FM.

The NT server also has lots of space.

Web companion stopped working again this morning. We now are using Netsentry to try and track down what is happening.

[Vaughan]

Something has changed in the last three weeks, find out what it is.

Do any of the hosted databases run scripts?

[mlindal]

Hosted databases do run scripts

The NT server had a patch applied to stop 'buffer overrun' related to code red attacks. It was after this patch was applied that things kept stopping. Of course the NT guys want to blame us for having a mac - but we've done nothing.

Net Sentry didn't do the trick - the web companion is down again today. I got an email suggesting a NIMDA attack on port 80 stops the web companion - but nothing in the Log file suggests that unless it doesn't show up???

[Anatoli]

If the scripts are called from FM client, that will be OK.

If the scripts are called from HTML, that is NO-NO for single threaded FileMaker.

[mlindal]

Anatoli - we've been through the no scripts arguement before. It is a small possibility that a script would bring down single threaded FM.

In this case I don't think it applies and I see nothing in the log file to indicate multiple scripts are being called in close proximity.

The best guess so far is a virus attack or the NT server patch is conflicting with access to the databases via web companion...

[mbcookman]

I have a similar scenario FM 5.0.1 and mac G3 OS 9.2.1 lots of HD space and plenty of ram assigned to FM:

The web pages stopped serving for no apparent reason about three weeks ago , they work again if FM is restarted but seem to stop after a few hours.

After checking all I could think of I upgraded to FM 5.0.3 and downgraded to OS 9.1 . Things are now back as they were I am going to trash FM preferences and maybe try a re- install .

Mark

[Anatoli]

RE: It is a small possibility that a script would bring down single threaded FM.

I did see it happened. And a complete freezes, not crash.

[DykstrL]

Look at:

http://www.fmforums.com/ubb/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=12&t=000333

It could be a virus attack.