Gossamer Forum
Home : Products : Gossamer Forum : Development, Plugins and Globals :

A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space

Quote Reply
A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space
About 5 months ago, my server ran out of disk space, and I lost access to our forums. It turned out that the data file disappeared. I recreated it (I believe correctly, but it's possible there's an error in it) and put it in the correct place with correct permissions, but this did not resolve the matter. I then re-installed as root (a mistake), and after being advised by gossamer support, re-installed through the web. The forums came up for a moment (only the entrance page) but after I clicked on a forum they went down and stayed down. The admin page is working, however when I use it, I can add a user, but not delete one.

An examination of our mysql database gives the impression that all the data is intact. Our user lists, forum lists, etc in the admin pages all appear accurate and up-to date. It is possible there is some problem with mysql but I tend to think this is not the issue.

I am not particularly linux-savvy, but the administrator of my box is, and he has taken a close look at the situation without being able to resolve it.

Our forums are very important to our small group, and I would greatly appreciate any advice or assistance in resolving this matter. I am happy to provide any troubleshooting information I can, run tests in the shell, examine logs (please tell me where I am likely to locate them) and report anything that might help anyone who can assist us.

I greatly appreciate any advice or assistance in this matter.

Sincerely,

D. De Stefano Founder, Organelle http://www.organelle.org
Quote Reply
Re: [organelle] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Hi,

Sorry, so what errors are you now getting?

NB: I've moved this into the right forum for you Wink

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk
Want to give me something back for my help? Please see my Amazon Wish List
GLinks ULTRA Package | GLinks ULTRA Package PRO
Links SQL Plugins | Website Design and SEO | UltraNerds | ULTRAGLobals Plugin | Pre-Made Template Sets | FREE GLinks Plugins!
Quote Reply
Re: [Andy] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Lately, for some reason, the forum page would appear, and the 'who's online' would work, but I was unable to login and actually look at the forums via the web. The strange thing is that sometimes the entrance page loads, other times in just stays blank in some sort of loop or failure during the url request.

The other day when I attempted to load them via the web, I saw a page with a bunch of diagnostic information. I think I saw somthing to the effect of 'gforum-online.(something)' missing.

Can you advise me how to generate or locate useful errors or logs? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

D. De Stefano
Founder, http://www.organelle.org

Last edited by:

organelle: Jan 17, 2006, 10:28 PM
Quote Reply
Re: [organelle] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Hi,

Mmm. can you show me a URL? I seem to remember I couldn't find it on your site (in your sig). You can PM it if you want :)

Its almost impossible to debug things like your problem, via just a support forum :(

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk
Want to give me something back for my help? Please see my Amazon Wish List
GLinks ULTRA Package | GLinks ULTRA Package PRO
Links SQL Plugins | Website Design and SEO | UltraNerds | ULTRAGLobals Plugin | Pre-Made Template Sets | FREE GLinks Plugins!
Quote Reply
Re: [Andy] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Hi Andy,

Thanks for your help and replies. The link to the forums, which will probably only produce a blank page, is this:

http://www.organelle.org/cgi-bin/orgz/gforum.cgi

Any idea where to hunt for error logs, or how to generate something useful in the shell?

Muchly Appreciated!
Quote Reply
Re: [organelle] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Hi,

Thanks. It just hangs for me. It looks like it may be down to your server load being too high.

If you log in via Telnet/SSh, and type;

w <press enter>

what does it show you?

NB: The error logs are normally located in the /logs folder, and called error_log. If you can't find it, try trying this in SSh/Telnet;

locate error_log

..and see what that gives you.

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk
Want to give me something back for my help? Please see my Amazon Wish List
GLinks ULTRA Package | GLinks ULTRA Package PRO
Links SQL Plugins | Website Design and SEO | UltraNerds | ULTRAGLobals Plugin | Pre-Made Template Sets | FREE GLinks Plugins!
Quote Reply
Re: [Andy] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Hi andy,

The locate command produced no results, and it's not a matter of server load. I own the server (it's in my closet) and there's nothing else and no one else of note running anything on it. Just httpd and an irc server. Perhaps we could chat via ICQ or my IRC server? (http://www.organelle.org/organelle/irc.html). By the way, I believe I am running v 1.1.1.

Any other advice on hunting or generating an error log? Again, I greatly appreciate your help!

d.
Quote Reply
Re: [organelle] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Hi,

Mmm.. not sure :/

Afraid I don't use IRC (I'm actually at work ATM, so can't really take too much time out :P).

Are you using a Linux flavoured system, or Windows based?

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk
Want to give me something back for my help? Please see my Amazon Wish List
GLinks ULTRA Package | GLinks ULTRA Package PRO
Links SQL Plugins | Website Design and SEO | UltraNerds | ULTRAGLobals Plugin | Pre-Made Template Sets | FREE GLinks Plugins!
Quote Reply
Re: [Andy] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Linux. Red Hat 7.x
Quote Reply
Re: [organelle] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Hi,

Ok, cool. Are you using local config files, or a general httpd.conf file?

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk
Want to give me something back for my help? Please see my Amazon Wish List
GLinks ULTRA Package | GLinks ULTRA Package PRO
Links SQL Plugins | Website Design and SEO | UltraNerds | ULTRAGLobals Plugin | Pre-Made Template Sets | FREE GLinks Plugins!
Quote Reply
Re: [Andy] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
How might I determine the answer to that question?

thanks!
Quote Reply
Re: [organelle] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Hi,

As root, try this via SSH;

locate httpd.conf

Does it give a result?

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk
Want to give me something back for my help? Please see my Amazon Wish List
GLinks ULTRA Package | GLinks ULTRA Package PRO
Links SQL Plugins | Website Design and SEO | UltraNerds | ULTRAGLobals Plugin | Pre-Made Template Sets | FREE GLinks Plugins!
Quote Reply
Re: [Andy] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Yes, it does. However, I am nearly certain the problem is with the gforums script. It erased its own data.pm file when we ran out of disk space, and possibly other parts of itself (given the recent error I saw regarding gforums-online.(something). Where I wonder where that file normally resides and what it is.

Here's the result:

/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf_bu
/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf.rpmnew
/etc/httpd/conf.old/httpd.conf
/etc/httpd-proxy/conf/httpd.conf
/etc/httpd-proxy/conf/httpd.conf_bu
/etc/httpd-proxy/conf/httpd.conf.rpmnew
/etc/httpd-proxy/conf.old/httpd.conf
/usr/share/doc/mod_perl-1.24_01/eg/httpd.conf.pl
/usr/share/apacheconf/httpd.conf.xsl

Thanks for the assistance, greatly appreciate having someone to talk to about this.
Quote Reply
Re: [organelle] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Hi,

Ah, ok.

Have you tried uploading the new version of GForum, and doing an "upgrade"? This should fix any potential issues, such as corrupt files (i.e when you had no space left, any files that were being printed would have been "cut" off, if even written at all).

> Thanks for the assistance, greatly appreciate having someone to talk to about this.

No worries =)

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk
Want to give me something back for my help? Please see my Amazon Wish List
GLinks ULTRA Package | GLinks ULTRA Package PRO
Links SQL Plugins | Website Design and SEO | UltraNerds | ULTRAGLobals Plugin | Pre-Made Template Sets | FREE GLinks Plugins!
Quote Reply
Re: [Andy] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
I haven't tried that. Is there any danger that this might compromise the (admittedly non-working) current installation? Where can I grab the new version? I did do an 'upgrade' re-install of my original version, which I was advised by the folks who made it to try.
Quote Reply
Re: [organelle] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Hi,

to make sure, just do a backup of your 'orgz' directory.

i.e;

cd /path/to/cgi-bin/orgz
tar -cvvf backup.tar *

Then, get the latest version of GForum from:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/scripts/licensed/

Upload to your admin directory, CHMOD to 755.. and then try running from your browser.

If that fails, or makes things worse.. you can revert back to the "backed up" data, by typing;

tar -xof backup.tar

Hope that helps :)

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk
Want to give me something back for my help? Please see my Amazon Wish List
GLinks ULTRA Package | GLinks ULTRA Package PRO
Links SQL Plugins | Website Design and SEO | UltraNerds | ULTRAGLobals Plugin | Pre-Made Template Sets | FREE GLinks Plugins!
Quote Reply
Re: [organelle] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
I can't log into that site to get the download. Next idea? One thing that's curious is this: how come no one (inlcuding the developers) can tell me where to find error logs? I mean, there must be -some- way to determine where they are, or to run the scripts from the shell to generate errors in real-time.

Best,

d.
Quote Reply
Re: [organelle] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Hi,

Mmm.. try emailing support@gossamer-threads.com, with your license number - and they should be able to sort you out with your login details :)

Quote:
how come no one (inlcuding the developers) can tell me where to find error logs? I mean, there must be -some- way to determine where they are, or to run the scripts from the shell to generate errors in real-time.

Because it differs from server to server =)

For example, our servers have the logs in /home/user/domain.com/logs/error_log

Whereas some of our other servers, have them in /home/logs/user/domain/error_log

If you want to email me your /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file (andy@ultranerds.com), I'd be happy to take a look for you, and see where your error log appears to be saving to :)

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk
Want to give me something back for my help? Please see my Amazon Wish List
GLinks ULTRA Package | GLinks ULTRA Package PRO
Links SQL Plugins | Website Design and SEO | UltraNerds | ULTRAGLobals Plugin | Pre-Made Template Sets | FREE GLinks Plugins!
Quote Reply
Re: [Andy] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Well, I can't email support. After a variety of rather bizarre back-and-forth it's become clear that they are frustrated with me to the point of not wanting to hear from me any more.

I will email you my httpd.conf file shortly. Greatly appreciate your help.
Quote Reply
Re: [organelle] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Here's the info from the .conf file:
# ErrorLog: The location of the error log file. If this does not start
# with /, ServerRoot is prepended to it.

ErrorLog logs/apacherr_log

However, I have examined this log, and I have set debug to 1 in the admin pages. No errors related to gforums are recorded in it.

Next step?
Quote Reply
Re: [organelle] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Hi,

Mmm.. appart from the upgrade to 1.2.3, I'm not sure what else to suggest :/

Maybe try GT again? If you are a license owner, they won't have a problem with resetting your password for the Script Download area Smile

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk
Want to give me something back for my help? Please see my Amazon Wish List
GLinks ULTRA Package | GLinks ULTRA Package PRO
Links SQL Plugins | Website Design and SEO | UltraNerds | ULTRAGLobals Plugin | Pre-Made Template Sets | FREE GLinks Plugins!
Quote Reply
Re: [Andy] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Here's something interesting, when I run the command from the shell, here's what I get in response...endless lines of this:

./orgz/gforum.cgi

ne WHERE guest_id_fk = 52428 from GForum::authenticate at /home/httpd/cgi-bin/or
gz/admin/GForum.pm line 549
GT::SQL::Driver::MYSQL::sth (11601): Executing query: DELETE FROM orgforums_Onli
ne WHERE guest_id_fk = 52427 from GForum::authenticate at /home/httpd/cgi-bin/or
gz/admin/GForum.pm line 549
GT::SQL::Driver::MYSQL::sth (11601): Executing query: DELETE FROM orgforums_Onli
ne WHERE guest_id_fk = 52426 from GForum::authenticate at /home/httpd/cgi-bin/or
gz/admin/GForum.pm line 549
GT::SQL::Driver::MYSQL::sth (11601): Executing query: DELETE FROM orgforums_Onli
ne WHERE guest_id_fk = 52425 from GForum::authenticate at /home/httpd/cgi-bin/or
gz/admin/GForum.pm line 549
Quote Reply
Re: [organelle] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Hi,

How many rows do you have in orgforums_Online ?

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM orgforums_Online;

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk
Want to give me something back for my help? Please see my Amazon Wish List
GLinks ULTRA Package | GLinks ULTRA Package PRO
Links SQL Plugins | Website Design and SEO | UltraNerds | ULTRAGLobals Plugin | Pre-Made Template Sets | FREE GLinks Plugins!
Quote Reply
Re: [Andy] A Call for Aid: Forums Down after running out of disk space In reply to
Not sure how to determine the answer to your question.

Here's some new news: I got and upgrade-installed version 1.2.3. I ran it in the shell, and got the following output, which I logged to a file. The file is located here:

http://www.organelle.org/organelle/gfoutput.txt

In case it's important, here's the permissions of the /orgz directory:

drwxr-xr-x 4 nobody nobody 4096 Jan 18 22:18 .
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Jan 18 22:22 ..
drwxr-xr-x 13 nobody nobody 4096 Jan 18 22:18 admin
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nobody nobody 6916 Oct 10 2003 gforum.cgi
-rwxrwxrwx 1 nobody nobody 4030 Nov 12 23:31 gforum.cgi0.bak
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nobody nobody 4033 Dec 1 21:37 gforum.cgi1.bak
-rwxrwxrwx 1 nobody nobody 4076 Nov 6 20:19 gforum.cgi.bak
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 Nov 13 01:02 images -> /home/httpd /html/orgz/images/
drwxrwxrwx 5 nobody nobody 4096 Jan 14 2002 images_old

Muchly appreciate your help, and, if you manage to help me get my forums back up, you can be certain that something on your wish list will be coming your way! :)

Last edited by:

organelle: Jan 19, 2006, 5:08 AM