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captain lizard
Asked: 2015-05-08 16:23:02 +0800 CST

Random “Gateway Timeout” error in Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS

  • 772

Tried everything, can't solve it. The error shows up at random points in time when client browsers access various PHP scripts, also in my own progran an Exception is sometimes being raised when I tried to pull content from PHP scripts. Sometimes it works well, sometimes doesn't.

Everything worked fine for years until some months ago.

Can a good soul take me slowly through a list of steps debugging? I am a novice in Linux.

htop screenshot shows nothing unusual right now:

1  [|                                0.2%]     5  [                                 0.0%]
  2  [                                 0.0%]     6  [                                 0.0%]
  3  [                                 0.0%]     7  [                                 0.0%]
  4  [||                               0.5%]     8  [||                               0.7%]
  Mem[|||||||||||||||||||||||||5363/32087MB]     Tasks: 57, 27 thr; 1 running
  Swp[||                        632/16375MB]     Load average: 0.04 0.07 0.13
                                                 Uptime: 57 days, 22:41:20

  PID USER      PRI  NI  VIRT   RES   SHR S CPU% MEM%   TIME+  Command
  468 mysql      20   0 8626M 4065M  4896 S  0.0 12.7  0:06.91 /usr/sbin/mysqld
 3742 root       20   0 26020  2368  1444 R  0.2  0.0  0:00.09 htop
 1235 mysql      20   0 8626M 4065M  4896 S  0.0 12.7     104h /usr/sbin/mysqld
 3745 root       20   0  101M  3968  2900 S  0.2  0.0  0:00.03 sshd: [accepted]
  851 root       20   0  545M  291M  7936 S  0.0  0.9  1:56.57 php /home/***/fr/fetcher.php
    1 root       20   0 34032  2188  1084 S  0.0  0.0  0:47.96 /sbin/init
  996 syslog     20   0  250M 22444   820 S  0.0  0.1  2:27.11 rsyslogd
 1402 mysql      20   0 8626M 4065M  4896 S  0.0 12.7  4:11.39 /usr/sbin/mysqld
  430 root       20   0 20004   492   492 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.13 upstart-udev-bridge --daemon
  440 root       20   0 51344   712   712 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.03 /lib/systemd/systemd-udevd --dae
  608 root       20   0 15260   368   368 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.08 upstart-socket-bridge --daemon
  849 root       20   0 59640  1444  1088 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.00 CRON
  850 root       20   0  4444   648   548 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.00 /bin/sh -c php /home/***/fr/fe
  856 root       20   0 59640  1044  1040 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.00 CRON
  858 root       20   0  4444   460   456 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.00 /bin/sh -c php /home/***/updat
  860 root       20   0  341M  5676  3580 S  0.0  0.0  1:43.45 php /home/***/updater/index.ph
  931 root       20   0 15276   376   376 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.06 upstart-file-bridge --daemon
  965 messagebu  20   0 39216  1000   808 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.47 dbus-daemon --system --fork
  997 syslog     20   0  250M 22444   820 S  0.0  0.1  0:00.02 rsyslogd
  998 syslog     20   0  250M 22444   820 S  0.0  0.1  2:06.88 rsyslogd
  995 syslog     20   0  250M 22444   820 S  0.0  0.1  4:34.06 rsyslogd
 1014 root       20   0 43452  1408  1232 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.60 /lib/systemd/systemd-logind
 1043 root       20   0 15820   676   672 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty4
 1045 root       20   0 15820   676   672 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty5
 1054 root       20   0 15820   676   672 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty2
 1055 root       20   0 15820   676   672 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty3
 1058 root       20   0 15820   676   672 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty6
 1074 root       20   0  4368   388   388 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.02 acpid -c /etc/acpi/events -s /va
 1160 root       20   0 23656   724   640 S  0.0  0.0  0:14.16 cron
 1161 daemon     20   0 19140   172   172 S  0.0  0.0  0:00.03 atd
 1313 mysql      20   0 8626M 4065M  4896 S  0.0 12.7  2:37.18 /usr/sbin/mysqld
 1314 mysql      20   0 8626M 4065M  4896 S  0.0 12.7  2:35.50 /usr/sbin/mysqld
 1315 mysql      20   0 8626M 4065M  4896 S  0.0 12.7  2:37.36 /usr/sbin/mysqld
 1316 mysql      20   0 8626M 4065M  4896 S  0.0 12.7  2:37.77 /usr/sbin/mysqld
 1317 mysql      20   0 8626M 4065M  4896 S  0.0 12.7  2:37.93 /usr/sbin/mysqld
 1318 mysql      20   0 8626M 4065M  4896 S  0.0 12.7  2:37.12 /usr/sbin/mysqld
 1319 mysql      20   0 8626M 4065M  4896 S  0.0 12.7  2:37.22 /usr/sbin/mysqld
F1Help  F2Setup F3SearchF4FilterF5Tree  F6SortByF7Nice -F8Nice +F9Kill  F10Quit

The contents of /etc/apache2/apache2.conf. There are many other *.conf files in this directory.

Mutex file:${APACHE_LOCK_DIR} default

#
# PidFile: The file in which the server should record its process
# identification number when it starts.
# This needs to be set in /etc/apache2/envvars
#
PidFile ${APACHE_PID_FILE}

#
# Timeout: The number of seconds before receives and sends time out.
#
Timeout 300

#
# KeepAlive: Whether or not to allow persistent connections (more than
# one request per connection). Set to "Off" to deactivate.
#
KeepAlive On

#
# MaxKeepAliveRequests: The maximum number of requests to allow
# during a persistent connection. Set to 0 to allow an unlimited amount.
# We recommend you leave this number high, for maximum performance.
#
MaxKeepAliveRequests 100

#
# KeepAliveTimeout: Number of seconds to wait for the next request from the
# same client on the same connection.
#
KeepAliveTimeout 5


# These need to be set in /etc/apache2/envvars
User ${APACHE_RUN_USER}
Group ${APACHE_RUN_GROUP}

HostnameLookups Off

ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

LogLevel warn

# Include module configuration:
IncludeOptional mods-enabled/*.load
IncludeOptional mods-enabled/*.conf

Include ports.conf

<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Require all denied
</Directory>

<Directory /usr/share>
    AllowOverride None
    Require all granted
</Directory>

<Directory /var/www/>
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Require all granted
</Directory>

AccessFileName .htaccess

<FilesMatch "^\.ht">
    Require all denied
</FilesMatch>

LogFormat "%v:%p %h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" vhost_combined
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" combined
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O" common
LogFormat "%{Referer}i -> %U" referer
LogFormat "%{User-agent}i" agent

# Include of directories ignores editors' and dpkg's backup files,
# see README.Debian for details.

# Include generic snippets of statements
IncludeOptional conf-enabled/*.conf

# Include the virtual host configurations:
IncludeOptional sites-enabled/*.conf

# vim: syntax=apache ts=4 sw=4 sts=4 sr noet

# Include phpmyadmin
Include /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf
ServerName localhost



<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin info@***.com
        DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"
        ServerName ***.***.com
        ServerAlias ***.***.com
        ErrorLog "logs/***/error_log"
        CustomLog "logs/***/access_log" common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin info@***.com
        DocumentRoot "/var/www/***"
        ServerName ***.com
        ServerAlias www.***.com
        ErrorLog "logs/***/error_log"
        CustomLog "logs/***/access_log" common
</VirtualHost>
timeout

2 Answers

  1. It sounds a little like your server might be running out of resources occasionally and is therefore unable to respond.

    An easy way to see if this is the case is to install (sudo apt-get install htop) and run a Linux program called htop.

    It will show you up the top how much CPU and RAM is being used and then list the processes (programs) that are open. You can sort the list by the various columns to see which ones are taking up resources.

    Incidentally, it's a good way to check what sort of programs you're using, for instance if you see anything under command called httpd or /usr/sbin/httpd or similar, you know you're using Apache as a web server.

    And because htop is a read-only program, you can't break anything by using it.

    • 1

  2. I have good reasons to believe the issue had nothing to do with my server, but with the internet connection I used on my personal laptop to access the server. I connect to the Internet with a mobile Wi-Fi device provided by Vodafone (converts 4G into WiFi). Vodafone servers somehow send this error message even before anything times out on my server. They do so for other servers as well. Other people using different internet connections do not receive the Gateway Timeout error when dealing with my server.

    • 0