Discussion:
[Gnewsense-dev] Website issue
Nandakumar Edamana
2016-08-31 06:25:56 UTC
Permalink
gnewsense.org seems to be taking forever to load. Any issue?
Sam Geeraerts
2016-08-31 21:17:16 UTC
Permalink
Op Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:55:56 +0530
Post by Nandakumar Edamana
gnewsense.org seems to be taking forever to load. Any issue?
http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/gnewsense-dev/2016-08/msg00002.html
Nandakumar Edamana
2016-08-31 22:50:18 UTC
Permalink
Post by Sam Geeraerts
Known issue. It's been suggested to run MoinMoin on nginx, but I
couldn't get that running myself.

Before that, could you please upload and share a hello world html page
without any server-side or client-side script (without images also) so
that we can measure the actual performance of the server?
Post by Sam Geeraerts
Op Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:55:56 +0530
gnewsense.org seems to be taking forever to load. Any issue?
http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/gnewsense-dev/2016-08/msg00002.html
_______________________________________________
gNewSense-dev mailing list
https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-dev
Sam Geeraerts
2016-09-02 22:07:42 UTC
Permalink
Op Thu, 1 Sep 2016 04:20:18 +0530
Post by Nandakumar Edamana
Before that, could you please upload and share a hello world html page
without any server-side or client-side script (without images also) so
that we can measure the actual performance of the server?
Done [1]. I've also disabled the fail2ban instance running on the
server. That seems to have helped a bit. Does anyone still see extreme
slowness?

[1] http://gnewsense.org/itworks.html
Paul Boddie
2016-09-02 23:03:27 UTC
Permalink
Post by Sam Geeraerts
Op Thu, 1 Sep 2016 04:20:18 +0530
Post by Nandakumar Edamana
Before that, could you please upload and share a hello world html page
without any server-side or client-side script (without images also) so
that we can measure the actual performance of the server?
Done [1]. I've also disabled the fail2ban instance running on the
server. That seems to have helped a bit. Does anyone still see extreme
slowness?
[1] http://gnewsense.org/itworks.html
This page appears instantly, but the main page is still very slow. Firefox
shows "Waiting for gnewsense.org..." in its status bar and it takes a while (a
couple of minutes, perhaps) before finally loading.

Paul
Nandakumar Edamana
2016-09-02 23:43:33 UTC
Permalink
Done...Does anyone still see extreme slowness?
Thanks for doing that. As Paul said, the new page loads instantly
while the other pages are still unavailable. However, now we are sure
that there is no issue with the server core. The problem seems to be
with our CMS.

I strongly suggest replacing the default main page with a simple HTML
file that shows an overall idea about gNewSense, important (working)
download links and a message informing that the site is under
maintenance. Otherwise people coming from Wikipedia and Google will
hate gNewSense from very beginning. Should I help preparing the page?
Op Thu, 1 Sep 2016 04:20:18 +0530
Post by Nandakumar Edamana
Before that, could you please upload and share a hello world html page
without any server-side or client-side script (without images also) so
that we can measure the actual performance of the server?
Done [1]. I've also disabled the fail2ban instance running on the
server. That seems to have helped a bit. Does anyone still see extreme
slowness?
[1] http://gnewsense.org/itworks.html
_______________________________________________
gNewSense-dev mailing list
https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-dev
Paul Boddie
2016-09-03 11:44:42 UTC
Permalink
Post by Nandakumar Edamana
Done...Does anyone still see extreme slowness?
Thanks for doing that. As Paul said, the new page loads instantly
while the other pages are still unavailable. However, now we are sure
that there is no issue with the server core. The problem seems to be
with our CMS.
I think it could be just some kind of issue with MoinMoin, and perhaps the
profiling information can be enabled to get an idea of where it is spending
its time.
Post by Nandakumar Edamana
I strongly suggest replacing the default main page with a simple HTML
file that shows an overall idea about gNewSense, important (working)
download links and a message informing that the site is under
maintenance. Otherwise people coming from Wikipedia and Google will
hate gNewSense from very beginning. Should I help preparing the page?
"Hate" might be a bit of a strong word, but I see your point.

Now, I loaded the RecentChanges page and it was a lot quicker than the main
page to appear. The RecentChanges page uses dynamic information, but it is
fairly optimised (being a central feature of MoinMoin), whereas the main page
contains mostly static information and yet takes several times longer to load
than RecentChanges.

I loaded the raw text of the main page which, after having looked at the main
page in its normal form, took place almost instantly:

http://www.gnewsense.org/Main/HomePage?action=raw

I also looked at various linked pages in raw form (but not in normal form),
just to exclude the effects of rendering, image loading, and so on. Some
loaded quickly, others (the Screenshots page) took a long time. It wasn't
clear whether caching was having an effect, either within MoinMoin or at the
filesystem level, or whether there could be a general resource use problem
that causes parts of MoinMoin to get swapped to disk, or something like that.

One thing that could help in profiling is the show_timings setting in the wiki
configuration:

https://moinmo.in/HelpOnConfiguration#style

Note that MoinMoin's caching mechanism should be fairly effective at
"compiling" pages and returning them quickly. It's possible that this
mechanism isn't functioning correctly - dirty caches are possibly the primary
issue in Moin maintenance - and thus things are a lot slower, but when the
serving up of raw text is slow, I'd suspect something else. (It doesn't cache
the raw text as far as I know, since that's just a straight copy of the text
to the response.)

Paul
Nandakumar Edamana
2016-09-03 11:58:04 UTC
Permalink
Thanks for taking a lot of effort! I can see the big change now -- it
loads finally. Yes, it is not lightning-speed, but it works. The home
page now loads withing a couple of seconds (compared to the
infinite-loading-state which it had before).
Post by Paul Boddie
Post by Nandakumar Edamana
Done...Does anyone still see extreme slowness?
Thanks for doing that. As Paul said, the new page loads instantly
while the other pages are still unavailable. However, now we are sure
that there is no issue with the server core. The problem seems to be
with our CMS.
I think it could be just some kind of issue with MoinMoin, and perhaps the
profiling information can be enabled to get an idea of where it is spending
its time.
Post by Nandakumar Edamana
I strongly suggest replacing the default main page with a simple HTML
file that shows an overall idea about gNewSense, important (working)
download links and a message informing that the site is under
maintenance. Otherwise people coming from Wikipedia and Google will
hate gNewSense from very beginning. Should I help preparing the page?
"Hate" might be a bit of a strong word, but I see your point.
Now, I loaded the RecentChanges page and it was a lot quicker than the main
page to appear. The RecentChanges page uses dynamic information, but it is
fairly optimised (being a central feature of MoinMoin), whereas the main page
contains mostly static information and yet takes several times longer to load
than RecentChanges.
I loaded the raw text of the main page which, after having looked at the main
http://www.gnewsense.org/Main/HomePage?action=raw
I also looked at various linked pages in raw form (but not in normal form),
just to exclude the effects of rendering, image loading, and so on. Some
loaded quickly, others (the Screenshots page) took a long time. It wasn't
clear whether caching was having an effect, either within MoinMoin or at the
filesystem level, or whether there could be a general resource use problem
that causes parts of MoinMoin to get swapped to disk, or something like that.
One thing that could help in profiling is the show_timings setting in the wiki
https://moinmo.in/HelpOnConfiguration#style
Note that MoinMoin's caching mechanism should be fairly effective at
"compiling" pages and returning them quickly. It's possible that this
mechanism isn't functioning correctly - dirty caches are possibly the primary
issue in Moin maintenance - and thus things are a lot slower, but when the
serving up of raw text is slow, I'd suspect something else. (It doesn't cache
the raw text as far as I know, since that's just a straight copy of the text
to the response.)
Paul
_______________________________________________
gNewSense-dev mailing list
https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-dev
Sam Geeraerts
2016-09-04 21:29:47 UTC
Permalink
Op Sat, 3 Sep 2016 17:28:04 +0530
Post by Nandakumar Edamana
Thanks for taking a lot of effort! I can see the big change now -- it
loads finally. Yes, it is not lightning-speed, but it works. The home
page now loads withing a couple of seconds (compared to the
infinite-loading-state which it had before).
I didn't do anything since the fail2ban change. But on my side it's
also looking better. A couple of seconds is still not too good, though.
Sam Geeraerts
2016-09-04 21:26:19 UTC
Permalink
Op Sat, 3 Sep 2016 05:13:33 +0530
Post by Nandakumar Edamana
Thanks for doing that. As Paul said, the new page loads instantly
while the other pages are still unavailable. However, now we are sure
that there is no issue with the server core. The problem seems to be
with our CMS.
I should note that (so far) when the website is slow, ssh sessions to
the server are also quite slow, usually with top (if I could run it)
showing high cpu load, but nothing really sticking out in cpu %.
Sam Geeraerts
2016-09-05 19:55:21 UTC
Permalink
Op Mon, 5 Sep 2016 04:34:40 +0530
An issue with the CMS can make the entire server slow, am I right?
Yes, and if it does I would like to see that in some metrics.
Now it went back to the old state. I strongly recommend replacing the
CMS-served homepage with a (temporary) static page until we solve the
issue.
We could do that. If you want to cook something up, please do.
Nandakumar Edamana
2016-09-05 23:16:05 UTC
Permalink
Post by Sam Geeraerts
We could do that. If you want to cook something up, please do.
Please see the attached file. It should load fast. However, I still
doubt about the pictures used in it.
Post by Sam Geeraerts
Op Mon, 5 Sep 2016 04:34:40 +0530
An issue with the CMS can make the entire server slow, am I right?
Yes, and if it does I would like to see that in some metrics.
Now it went back to the old state. I strongly recommend replacing the
CMS-served homepage with a (temporary) static page until we solve the
issue.
We could do that. If you want to cook something up, please do.
_______________________________________________
gNewSense-dev mailing list
https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-dev
Nandakumar Edamana
2016-09-05 23:20:12 UTC
Permalink
A text-only version is also attached...
Post by Nandakumar Edamana
Post by Sam Geeraerts
We could do that. If you want to cook something up, please do.
Please see the attached file. It should load fast. However, I still
doubt about the pictures used in it.
Post by Sam Geeraerts
Op Mon, 5 Sep 2016 04:34:40 +0530
An issue with the CMS can make the entire server slow, am I right?
Yes, and if it does I would like to see that in some metrics.
Now it went back to the old state. I strongly recommend replacing the
CMS-served homepage with a (temporary) static page until we solve the
issue.
We could do that. If you want to cook something up, please do.
_______________________________________________
gNewSense-dev mailing list
https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-dev
Sam Geeraerts
2016-09-06 21:11:09 UTC
Permalink
Op Tue, 6 Sep 2016 04:46:05 +0530
Post by Nandakumar Edamana
Please see the attached file. It should load fast. However, I still
doubt about the pictures used in it.
Thanks. I can't install it right now because ssh times out. That means
that the problem still exists and fail2ban wasn't the culprit.
Sam Geeraerts
2016-09-10 07:08:50 UTC
Permalink
Op Tue, 6 Sep 2016 23:11:09 +0200
Post by Sam Geeraerts
Thanks. I can't install it right now because ssh times out.
New homepage is installed.
Nandakumar Edamana
2016-09-10 08:04:36 UTC
Permalink
Post by Sam Geeraerts
New homepage is installed.
Thank you, now it loads very fast. However, I hope that the root issue
will be solved later.
Post by Sam Geeraerts
Op Tue, 6 Sep 2016 23:11:09 +0200
Post by Sam Geeraerts
Thanks. I can't install it right now because ssh times out.
New homepage is installed.
_______________________________________________
gNewSense-dev mailing list
https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-dev
Sam Geeraerts
2016-09-11 21:55:09 UTC
Permalink
Op Sat, 10 Sep 2016 09:08:50 +0200
Post by Sam Geeraerts
New homepage is installed.
I've also found that we used mod_rewrite for cases that can be handled
otherwise. I've tweaked the configuration and disabled mod_rewrite. It
looks like that has a positive effect.
Nandakumar Edamana
2016-09-11 23:48:22 UTC
Permalink
Post by Sam Geeraerts
I've also found that we used mod_rewrite for cases that can be handled
otherwise. I've tweaked the configuration and disabled mod_rewrite. It
looks like that has a positive effect.
Yes, it has!
Post by Sam Geeraerts
Op Sat, 10 Sep 2016 09:08:50 +0200
Post by Sam Geeraerts
New homepage is installed.
I've also found that we used mod_rewrite for cases that can be handled
otherwise. I've tweaked the configuration and disabled mod_rewrite. It
looks like that has a positive effect.
_______________________________________________
gNewSense-dev mailing list
https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-dev
Paul Boddie
2016-09-06 10:38:38 UTC
Permalink
Post by Sam Geeraerts
Op Mon, 5 Sep 2016 04:34:40 +0530
An issue with the CMS can make the entire server slow, am I right?
Yes, and if it does I would like to see that in some metrics.
I still think that server-side measurements would perhaps be the best way to
diagnose the problem. Is a virtual machine involved here? Could it be the case
that the VM seems quiet but is really running on an overloaded physical
machine? I'm just guessing here.

Paul
Nandakumar Edamana
2016-09-06 12:23:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by Paul Boddie
Could it be the case
that the VM seems quiet but is really running on an overloaded physical
machine? I'm just guessing here.

Do you think this page [1] can load lightning fast in such a situation also?
[1] http://gnewsense.org/itworks.html
Post by Paul Boddie
Post by Sam Geeraerts
Op Mon, 5 Sep 2016 04:34:40 +0530
An issue with the CMS can make the entire server slow, am I right?
Yes, and if it does I would like to see that in some metrics.
I still think that server-side measurements would perhaps be the best way to
diagnose the problem. Is a virtual machine involved here? Could it be the case
that the VM seems quiet but is really running on an overloaded physical
machine? I'm just guessing here.
Paul
_______________________________________________
gNewSense-dev mailing list
https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-dev
Paul Boddie
2016-09-06 12:59:14 UTC
Permalink
Post by Paul Boddie
Post by Paul Boddie
Could it be the case
that the VM seems quiet but is really running on an overloaded physical
machine? I'm just guessing here.
Do you think this page [1] can load lightning fast in such a situation
also? [1] http://gnewsense.org/itworks.html
I'm only really speculating here, but I could imagine a Web server serving a
static file to be a "fast path" that doesn't demand significantly more
resources suddenly, whereas even MoinMoin reaching into its cache and
producing cached pages could cause some kind of resource contention on an
overloaded physical machine.

I guess external measurements might identify some problems. If the Web site
were visited more frequently, maybe the data being served up would be more
likely to be resident in disk caches or RAM and would therefore get served
more quickly. But the definitive knowledge of how frequently the site gets
visited is in the server logs, so we'd still need server-resident information.

Anyway, I'm not sure I have much more to say on the topic. I'm sure Sam has
the matter under control.

Paul
Dika Setya Prayogi
2016-09-08 00:34:38 UTC
Permalink
the gnewsense site loads fine here in asia, tough timeout still
occuring sometimes
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