Forum OpenACS Q&A: No pages getting served

Posted by john menke on 09/24/00 12:22 AM

I have AOLServer 3.0 and Postgres 7.02 and ACS 3.2.4. I have
AOLServer installed and it works when I use the default nsd.tcl file.
When I switch to my customized version of version of the nsd.tcl file,
the server.log file in the log directory of my aolserver installation
does not show any errors, but I fail to get served a page.... when I
browse to my site. I just get an endless wait... No errors, it just
waits.

Postgresql is working and has all the tables loaded. I have
reinstalled everything (Postgresql and ACS) serveral times. I'm even
using the new version - 3.2.4... still nothing.

Can someone please help me? This is the 3rd weekend I am spending on
this problem!!

2: Response to No pages getting served (response to 1)

Posted by Ben Adida on 09/24/00 12:43 AM

Do you get any errors when manually starting the nsd process
from a shell prompt? Also, are you sure your customized nsd.tcl
file logs errors to the same server.log as the standard nsd.tcl?
You can also post your nsd.tcl file for us to look at (or make it
available at some URL).

3: Response to No pages getting served (response to 1)

Posted by john menke on 09/24/00 12:54 AM

Ben, thanks for answering. I fixed it!!!!!!! Still don't know what was causing the problem, but I guessed that something was wrong with the nsd.tcl so I downloaded the sample copy off the ACS site and started from scratch. I commented out the nsjava section and to my suprise IT WORKED!!!! Can't believe I reinstalled everything over and over again. (I'm getting pretty good at it)... Oh well, such is life.

4: No pages getting served-similar problem (response to 1)

Posted by Hans Gaasenbeek on 06/11/01 10:51 PM

Aolserver, PostgreSQL running, loaded, Aolserver's logs show no errors, port 80 is open but... no pages are served.

Endless waits, here, too. I took out everything from nsd.tcl that could cause problems... (ssl, java) (I am a bit desperate, trying over and over again for days now... (Well not for weeks as John Menke did...) Ok, I am clearly a beginner... could anybody help me?

The (modified) testfile from the Aolserver distribution that does make the server at least serve one page is here (test.tcl, renamed test.txt), the not-working nsd.tcl file (renamed nsd.txt) is here. Thank you!!

5: Response to No pages getting served (response to 1)

Posted by Ola Hansson on 06/12/01 12:31 AM

Hi Hans,

Having looked at your previous post I assume that you did succeed in serving the AOLserver welcome page.
Why not start by changing the address in nsd.tcl to 127.0.0.1 until you get things going. It's also quite convenient to start AOLserver in the foreground: /home/aolserver/bin/nsd -ft /home/aolserver/nsd.tcl during this phase. Post relevant parts of the screen dump here so we can have a look (inside PRE tags please).

Did you read and follow the installation guide? What versions of everyting have you got?

6: Response to No pages getting served (response to 1)

Posted by Hans Gaasenbeek on 06/12/01 01:34 AM

Hello Ola, thanks for your response.

Yes, the Aolserver welcoming page is served (using "test.tcl" as mentioned above).

I have OpenAcs 3.2.5, Pgdriver 2.0, PostgreSQL 7.1.2, Aolserver-3.4 running on an AMD 1Ghz box with 400 MB ram, RH 7.1. The output of the screen only shows 'notices', except: Warning: sched: excessive time taken by proc 5 (5 seconds).

Changing to 127.0.0.1 doesn't seem to be of much help, as I am permanently connected to the internet. The mentioned IP address is the permanent IP address of Eth0. www.timedesk.net is a domain name with a redirection to the IP 217.120.32.121. Starting AOLserver in the foreground is indeed helpful, but I was watching the logs closely anyway...

A log can be found : here. Thanks for your support!

7: Response to No pages getting served (response to 1)

Posted by Ola Hansson on 06/12/01 10:31 AM

Looks like you found what the problem was

8: Response to No pages getting served (response to 1)

Posted by Hans Gaasenbeek on 06/12/01 12:11 PM

Well, Ola, no, I did not solve the problem... Was my posting unclear?

Test.tcl is provided by Oalserver, and with some editing it does serve the welcoming page so there is no problem with that file or the server.
It is when I use nsd.tcl (which sets up Aolserver for OpenAcs) that the problems begin (and NO pages whatsoever are served).

I am now thinking that the problem is located in the .tcl file in /web/timedesk/parameters (timedesk.tcl). I may have edited too much in it...

9: OK, solved (response to 1)

Posted by Hans Gaasenbeek on 06/12/01 12:55 PM

OK, it is solved, by suggestions from another thread... I set both servername and address to be the IP address. (Still it is strange that the static page was served with the wrong settings.) Well, so much to be learnt!

10: Response to No pages getting served (response to 1)

Posted by Ola Hansson on 06/12/01 03:27 PM

Eh...I guessed everything was fine since I was able to connect to www.timedesk.net (and to put my hands on user_id 3

You mean hostname when say servername, right? Setting both the hostname and the address to the ip-address isn't considered the way to go (but can be a workaround when DNS isn't properly configured).
As of now your ip-address appears in my browser's address field because you have the hostname set to the ip...

Actually (as you may have noticed in the thread you found) I had a similar problem myself some time ago. I am behind a IP-Masquerading firewall and, with kernel 2.2.x, hosts on one network segment cannot connect to other hosts on the same segment unless you fool around a lot. Adding entries in /etc/hosts also does the trick.

It was to avoid this kind of network jungle that I suggested that you get things started on localhost first, following the book...

11: Response to No pages getting served (response to 1)

Posted by David Walker on 06/12/01 03:36 PM

did you have the servername set to "www.timedesk.net" before?

12: (response to 1)

Posted by Hans Gaasenbeek on 06/12/01 07:05 PM

Yes, Ola, I did mean "hostname" there. I have not figured out exactly what I can do with the situation. This is only a test machine, running on a cable connection, so a hostname like CP14105-X.dbsch1.nb.home.com belongs to this IP. For now, I am glad it works! Profesionally hosting the server can be done later. Strangely, an URL like www.timedesk.net/bboard does work! (I should be doing an essential TCP/IP / DNS course I guess...)

No, David, I did not set the servername "www.timedesk.net" , but that does not make any differece for the operation of AOLserver, I think.

13: Response to No pages getting served (response to 1)

Posted by David Walker on 06/12/01 07:35 PM

OpenACS by default has ForceHostP set to 1 in the OpenACS config file. When this setting is turned on the server will redirect any request to the hostname set in the server config file.

So if you set the hostname to "cp14105" any request to http://www.timedesk.net/bboard/ or http://217.120.32.121/bboard/ will be rewritten to http://cp14105/bboard/ which will probably fail.

14: host/server (response to 1)

Posted by Hans Gaasenbeek on 06/12/01 08:23 PM

Well, with www.timedesk.net as _hostname_ the thing does nothing (which is obvious, as DNS states a different name). I will stick to IP adresses for now.