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November 1996, Week 1

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Subject:
CGI problems with web servers
From:
Stan Sieler <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Stan Sieler <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 4 Nov 1996 13:20:43 -0800
Content-Type:
text/plain
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text/plain (57 lines) 
Hi,

I've duplicated the CGI "lost data" problem that some people have
reported recently.  Here's some comments/observations.

   1) When transferring large amounts of data, sometimes the transfer
      is interrupted after a portion is sent
      (typically 32KB, but sometimes 16KB)

   2) When the interruption occurs, the cgi program is aborted!

I deduced #2 by writing a cgi program that sends the following text
to the web server:

   <BODY>0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ... 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 <BR>
   28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35   ... 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 <BR>
   53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60   ... 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 <BR>
   ...
   19980 19981 19982 19983   ... 19988 19989 19990 19991 19992 <BR>
   19993 19994 19995 19996 19997 19998 19999 20000 <BR>
   Done, #bytes 114528, #recs 1420</BODY></HTML>

and then does a PRINTOP with a summary of the number of bytes...in
normal operation, I get the entire text sent to my web browser *and* the
summary appears on the system console.

When I get a truncated file on the web browser, I do *NOT* see a message
on the system console...indicating that the cgi program was aborted
prior to finishing!

I tested accessing this cgi program over our local Ethernet (10 Mb/sec),
and found:

   - an HP-UX workstation received the entire text about 90%+ of the time.
     When it failed, it stopped at about number 6336 ... which represented
     (counting the unseen overhead) about 32768 bytes (according to the
     access_log).

   - a Win95 Pentium received the entire text about 0% of the time,
     consistently stopping at number 3264 (16384 bytes).

Up to this point, all of the tests described above were done using the
OpenMarket WebServer.  I then tried the NCSA server, and found:

   - EVERY transmission to the Win95 and HP-UX workstation worked!
     I didn't get a single failure.

Also, I noticed:

   - An HP-UX workstation (9000/859 aka K220) running Netscape 3.0 was
     about twice as fast as a Pentium 75, running Netscape 3.0 in displaying
     the entire text.

--
Stan Sieler                                          [log in to unmask]
                                     http://www.allegro.com/sieler.html

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