FTP complaint from ISP

[Vegit8]

Hi
Today I recd the following from my host (LCN.com).

Your domain name geoffwebber.co.uk is currently causing OOM (Out-Of_Memory) issues on the FTP server due to a persistant FTP session you are running to the site

From the logs, you're uploading the following files every 20 seconds

Jun 21 03:35:00 barge3 proftpd[5568]: ftp.hosts.co.uk (5568): 226 geoffwebber.co.uk@141.195.181.66 STOR "web/weather/realtime.txttmp" 254 0.051
Jun 21 03:35:00 barge3 proftpd[5568]: ftp.hosts.co.uk (5568): 350 geoffwebber.co.uk@141.195.181.66 RNFR "/web/weather/realtime.txttmp" 0 -
Jun 21 03:35:00 barge3 proftpd[5568]: ftp.hosts.co.uk (5568): 250 geoffwebber.co.uk@141.195.181.66 RNTO "/web/weather/realtime.txt" 0 -
Jun 21 03:35:00 barge3 proftpd[5568]: ftp.hosts.co.uk (5568): 226 geoffwebber.co.uk@141.195.181.66 STOR "/web/weather/realtimegauges.txttmp" 1678 0.050
Jun 21 03:35:00 barge3 proftpd[5568]: ftp.hosts.co.uk (5568): 350 geoffwebber.co.uk@141.195.181.66 RNFR "/web/weather/realtimegauges.txttmp" 0 -
Jun 21 03:35:00 barge3 proftpd[5568]: ftp.hosts.co.uk (5568): 250 geoffwebber.co.uk@141.195.181.66 RNTO "/web/weather/realtimegauges.txt" 0 -
Jun 21 03:35:00 barge3 proftpd[5568]: ftp.hosts.co.uk (5568): 226 geoffwebber.co.uk@141.195.181.66 STOR "/web/weather/realtimegauges.txttmp" 1678 0.034
Jun 21 03:35:00 barge3 proftpd[5568]: ftp.hosts.co.uk (5568): 350 geoffwebber.co.uk@141.195.181.66 RNFR "/web/weather/realtimegauges.txttmp" 0 -
Jun 21 03:35:00 barge3 proftpd[5568]: ftp.hosts.co.uk (5568): 250 geoffwebber.co.uk@141.195.181.66 RNTO "/web/weather/realtimegauges.txt" 0 -


Can you please either
- adjust whatever FTP client you're using to increase the gap between uploads to something more sensible, and to close the connection once it's finished.
- create an API on your web site and use that to add the data to your site

OOM issues present serious problems for the server itself, and will cause it to crash. If this behaviour continues, we will unfortunately have to block FTP access for your IP address 141.195.181.66 (cust-141-195-181-66.jurassic-fibre.net.) till it is resolved

I have replied telling them that I have been running in this configuration for about 8 years without an issue, it may be that they are tightening up on FTP traffic.

In the interim I have doubled the send frequency to 40 seconds.

I am confused by the statement that the FTP client is leaving open connections, I thought it shut down each transfer after it was successful.

[SamiS]

If I remember correctly, the realtime interval transfer session is kept open all the time when Cumulus is running. If they suddenly are actually experiencing out-of-memory issues, the problem most likely in something they have changed or upgraded. One open session with server really shouldn’t cause any issues for them.

If they are insisting you to change things, and the problem is the ftp itself, maybe you could try to change your uploads to use sftp (not ftps) or the new php method. viewtopic.php?t=21263 Of course it may also have its own issues depending on the server security settings.

[Vegit8]

Have updated to .php uploads, which seem to be working fine.
It remains to be seen if the host still complains...

Thanks all

[The PIT]

Probably the easy thing to blame ftp.

Had a run in with Hostpapa who's ftp server is slow and used to come back with an invalid response so the client asked for another port and then another invalid response so it asked for another port and they saw it as a port scan and blocked me.

The ftp was so slow the transfers often haven't finished before the next connection so ended up loads of stale ftp connections which resulted in another block.

The none techie who contacted me confused ftp with http eventually ending up with 1st line support arguing with 2nd line support.

My solution was to host the data side of things myself at the time I was using weather display.

Generally ISP's don't like regular ftp feeds. I wonder if some will get twitchy over php transfers.