We're using activestate perl build 506 with xitami on an nt box. Netscape 4.5 clients. Everything works fine for small (10-15k) files.

However, with larger files, eg 50k, we get "network error - connection reset by peer" errors. Almost immediately after pressing the upload button. Happens even when I try it from the workstation where the server is running. Rebooting makes no difference and I have no other signs of a sick network !

I know other cgi's of this type which have comments in the source about problems with NT.

Anyone else out there having the same or NO problems with this on NT boxes, or any ideas about how to repair it (other than moving to linux !) ?

------------------
Dr Ross Lazarus
Associate Professor and Sub-Dean for Information Technology
Faculty of Medicine, Room 124, A27, University of Sydney,
Camperdown, NSW 2006, Australia
Tel: (+61 2) 93514429 Mobile: +61414872482
Fax: (+61 2) 93516646 Email: rossl@med.usyd.edu.au
http://www.health.usyd.edu.au/people/rossl.htm

Hi Ross,

I know HTTP uploads are unreliable for large files. I generally wouldn't use them at files over 300k. However, if you can't upload even 50k files, then that seems like something is wrong.

My instinct would say it's with Xitami. Try setting up a different web server. I'd recommend O'Reilly's website, but you could also try IIS. (I'm able to upload 200k files using Website).

Cheers,

Alex

In fact see:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/...um7/HTML/000013.html

for someone who can upload 5 MB files on a windows platform..

Cheers,

Alex

Hello Ross and Alex,
The first question I have is...

Does the Xitami server contain a config. file with a setting which sets a limit on the upload?
Apache has one called "LimitRequestBody". When set to "50000", for example, only files less than 50K can be uploaded.

I am currently running an Apache server on Win 95. Everything works great with Fileman. Including uploads at 5000000! I posted the message Alex suggested above.
I have two UserNames, one from work and one when I'm at home.

Ben

Thanks for the info.

As the docs. say, Apache on NT is not optimized. We just did some benchmarks here and xitami gave much better performance. I just RTFM yet again; Xitami allows quotas for ftp users (currently set to 5mB) but this is not an ftp issue. http-update is set for the relevant directories which is required.

I've had very good support from imatix technical people so I'll ask them and get back to this list...

Thanks for the info.

As the docs. say, Apache on NT is not optimized. We just did some benchmarks here and xitami gave much better performance. I just RTFM yet again; Xitami allows quotas for ftp users (currently set to 5mB) but this is not an ftp issue. http-update is set for the relevant directories which is required.

I've had very good support from imatix technical people so I'll ask them and get back to this list...

OK, Problem solved. It's a xitami 2.4c1 bug. I look forward to 2.4c2

This from Imatix yesterday

"Ross,

This is a bug in 2.4c1, fixed in the forthcoming release. The HTTP
put functions simply fail for files larger than 30000 bytes.

-
Alexander McGregor
Technical Consultant
iMatix Corporation"

Ross,
The line from above....."The HTTP
put functions simply fail for files larger than 30000 bytes"... prompts a question.

Are you using "method=post" or "method=put" in the form for file upload? It should be "method=post", which is the original code. Did you change it?
Imatix only mentions the put function above. Due too lack of experience, I raise the next question. Are put and post that closely related? If so end of discussion.
I have heard of possible security risks using the put method and because of this it should be used with caution, though I'm sorry I don't remember the specifics. I'll try to find them and get back here.
Ben

That bit of code is not changed.

The form calls post which is what the cgi gets when the user presses the upload button.

Subsequent negotiation between browser and server apparently results in an http put but we're getting way beyond my competence. Xitami allows control of http-update (which is all 3) down to http-get http-put http-delete at the file/directory level.

Good news, xitami (http://www.xitami.com) have released 2.4c2 which fixes the http-put 30k limitation bug. Everything works fine - I just uploaded a 4mB file without any problems.

Thanks for the great utility Alex..!

For what it's worth, xitami runs rings around all the other free servers for NT - and I've tried most including apache.

------------------
Dr Ross Lazarus
Associate Professor and Sub-Dean for Information Technology
Faculty of Medicine, Room 124, A27, University of Sydney,
Camperdown, NSW 2006, Australia
Tel: (+61 2) 93514429 Mobile: +61414872482
Fax: (+61 2) 93516646 Email: rossl@med.usyd.edu.au
http://www.health.usyd.edu.au/people/rossl.htm