Hi I'm new, and also newbie to web hosting.

I have a problem, I run windows server 2003 and IIS to host a few websites using host headers to differentiate between them.

I have recently changed ISP and therefore IP address and the websites were fine before this, now all of a sudden it takes 30 seconds to load a page.

I have done a tracert and the last packet only takes 148ms a round trip, so can't see a problem there.

can't post the websites but if you put littleocean inbetween the couk and the www then you'll see it's really slow. How has changing the ISP managed to change the speed when the tracert finds the server no problem??

No problems with the previous ISP but surely if it finds the server then that's the ISP job done?

Thanks, and apologies for any daft questions but I'm new to this and stumped!

Toby

It looks like the server is at fault, I tried to open the page from my ISP in the UK, also from one of our US servers and finally from one of our UK servers, in all cases they sent the request then stalled for an age before receiving the page from the server.

Can't see anything wrong with the network so have to assume there's an issue with the server and/or the database driving it. Ask your host to check their server.

One other possible cause is your shop script is pulling data from a 3rd party site such as a currency conversion site and that site is slow and thus killing yours. If that is the case then you need to recode your site to pull in external data in the background and not per request. Without going through your site/code I don't know if this applies or not.

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Yeah, i'd be checking what's going on on the server.. - going raw with telnet, it accepts the connection straight away, but for me there was 43 seconds from sending the Host: header, and receiving any HTML back.. If it was only a second or two, I'd say someone had DNS resolving turned on for logging, but this is just bizarre!

Given you have the same codebase, I'd be asking your host to check what's wrong (assuming it's not a colo'd server, in which case I guesss you get to sort through all the IIS settings ) - or maybe you can do some testing by putting up some test pages that a) dont' call the database and then b) call the db, and output the time before/after queries, etc, and keep adding things that are on the mainpage, until you find where your slowdown is..

Cheers,

DG

Well, I am in Hawaii and the pages loaded lightening fast for me. I hit your site about 11pm UK time so maybe that makes a difference. If it does, then your server isn't handling traffic very well.

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If the delay is a random amount of time, longer at certain times and shorter at others (as suggested by the person in Hawaii), it could be the ISP -- though your trace route should have shown something funky going on. It's harder to put a finger on it if it's a random delay.

If it seems to be the same amount of time -- I didn't time it myself, but I have to say it was very close to the 43 seconds it took to load for someone else -- then it is more likely a DNS-related problem on the server. I have to admit, with a two minute look, that's what it seems like. It takes forever to complete the first connection, then all access to the site is lightning fast.

I guess Reverse DNS is enabled. My interpretation is that you're running the server via a new ISP.. if that's the case, check for that. If it's a host, have them check... either way, I've encountered this a million times and every time I was told I was crazy until it was ferreted out. Though I do have to admit I've never seen it on a Win/IIS configuration and it's usually a problem noted with Telnet or Secure Shell, this sure does look like the same problem.

Good luck with it, either way.. it's an annoying problem that probably has a lot of casual visitors (and potential business) leaving before the site loads.

Toby,

It appears that you've a static IP Address with Opal Telecom.

Are you hosting this site yourself; or, is Opal providing hosting service?

The load time for individual pages is extremely variable; ranging from very short to infinitely long. And, Header requests repeatedly time out.

Ping and TraceRoute/TracePath/Tracert use different protocols, both for routing and service, than do HTTP service requests.

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I'd say it's most definitely the server config at fault.

It's always the first request that takes ages to come up, all subsequent pages load very fast so I doubt it's the connection.

Could it be that IIS is compressing the pages before it sends them?

My first thoughts were DNS but if you close the browser and try again you get the same delay.

It's very odd, now I'm seeing the site is completely dead, it looks painful.

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Thanks for all the replies, the site has been on and off today!,

Most of today I couldn't get thru to this site to see if I had any replies!!

I am hosting it myself,

With the database issue we have several sites on the server, and this one.. toysoftware again it's a co uk site, is just simple html, yet on a speed check it comes out with 29 second load time!, or is the selfseo website speed test telling porkies?, it seemed to be the truth with the littleocean one but there's more to load.

Can't see anything funny going on with trace routes and ping plotters etc..

Will look into this reverse DNS on the server not sure what it is but I'll start looking into now.

Thanks again, any more ideas be glad of some more pointers.

Cheers

Toby

DNS seems OK to me, as is traceroute and ping - in fact, it's delivering content fine once you get past the first phase.

Seems to me that something is doing something on initial request.

Could be firewall.

You say you are hosting it yourself, what kind of connection is it? is it copper or fibre?

Is it on a broadband connection?

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It's the response to the request that's slow not the server lookup therefore I doubt DNS unless you're doing lookups internally and the DNS servers that are being used by the server are horribly slow.

As it's intermittent to some degree anyway, it's not something as simple as RAM being exhausted or your database thrashing the disk system? Does the server use lots of CPU, RAM, IO etc when the site is slow, what's it doing?

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Hi,

It's 10Mb copper,

the other sites (all co uk) toysoftware and thebigtipi have only very simple info on them yet the speed test shows the load up time to be a long time for what they are, toysoftware being 29 sec, and thebigtipi 2 sec, which is only one image!

I've even diabled the other websites and just had the toysoftware one active and it's still slow

Hi,

Sorry, when I said the site was on and off today that was just me moving the server, a bad time to move it I know!, so it's pretty consistent being slow, it was quick with the old ISP and now slow with the new one, but it looks like something has happend in coincidence so maybe changing ISP is not the reason??

Probably none of the options I gave you then.

Have you looked at what the server is doing while serving pages?

Any errors in the system logs e.g. RAID card degraded etc?

Assuming you updated all the next working information for the new ISP including resolvers no I'd say unlikely.

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I've just tried setting reverse DNS to True and False and restarting IIs inbetween but makes no difference in speed. I did presume restrating IIS would be sufficient to read the reverse DNS setting and not a full reboot?

It's windows, I tend to just reboot if in doubt.

Personally I won't have windows servers in our hosting operation.

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The server barely does anything CPU flicker up to 5% tops, loads of free memory.

Don't have RAID, and the logs seem ok, the webservers on the same network as my pc and on loopback the site works fine and fast. But obvioulsy it's not having to serve the page very far..

Not sure, it's all a bit of a mystery.

I'll try the settings in with a full reboot, I wouldn't ever use windows out of choice!!

It was convenient to piggy back on this windows machine, and I don't know much about other OS systems.

EDIT,

Just flip flopped reverse dns settings with reboots inbetween reverse dns off seems to make it slightly faster but that's still 29 seconds. Will go home now so I can test the speed from a external source instead of trusting the speed checker.

Thanks for the help so far.

That's not consistent with my observations, which are that subsequent pages requests have load times that are exceedingly variable.

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As above noted, that's because Ping & Trace use protocols quite different from HTTP calls.

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You stated that all was well prior to your changing ISPs; assuming that you've made absolutely no other changes, then it must be the case that the problem lies with your connectivity.

Have you monitored your upload speeds?

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That's what I keep thinking but just can't figure it out. The only other change was originally there was a vigor router and now it's a Zxyel router with a sonic wall firewall. But I'd have thought once they let the connection thru it's thru..

I hadn't recorded any figures from before but it definately didn't take 30 seconds to load the page with the old ISP.

Just to remind you I'm not that technically proficient with all this so if there's anything obvious I may be missing that you can think of I'll give it a go.


Thanks

Toby

Ah, two changes.

Can you swap the old router back in?

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I'd put money on it being a firewall problem, but only a couple of quid though

Yeah, put the Vigor back in and try it again.

Who configured the new router and firewall?

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It's my Dad who initially configured it, he knows alot more about this stuff than me but not enough to sort it!,

We then had three different techy guys on the phone and the third one managed to get it working.

The vigor doesn't have the adsl2 connection, (if that's the right term) so we had to put this Zxyel router which then didn't have protection so added the sonic wall for the fire wall.

So am I right in thinking the firewall cud slow things down, not just block or unblock traffic??

I'll see if we can somehow stick the high speed back thru the vigor, not sure about that tho, I'll see what the old man says.

Thanks

Yeh, sorry about that, it's my pet hate and I've done it myself..

"are you sure you just pressed ctrl P then /k"
"Umm, well yeh and then spilt my coffee on the keyboard"

Not sure how you are for budget but it might be an idea to order a more simpler router option.

Adding 2 pieces of kit will increase complexity and add 2 points of failure. Some will argue that's it's better to do things with a router and a separate firewall and there are advantages but when you get a problem it's double trouble IMHO.

Vigor (who I rate VERY highly BTW) do a 2820 (I think) router that is ADSL2 compatible. It's quite cheap too at around £130 - it has a very good firewall built in and full Nat ability etc etc etc.

Might be an idea to invest, we just upgraded our broadband router to an all singing and dancing 2820 and I have to say it's an impressive piece of kit.

Oh and I do think that the 2 pieces of hardware you have installed ARE the problem. Firewall configuration is best left to the guys who have done the courses, they are minefields.

Oh, one final thing - is the line 10MB Broadband or a proper dedicated 10MB connection?

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It's a standard Broadband with a max share 10,

I think I'll get the vigor back out and hopefully it'll work which will mean new vigor router here we come.

Cheers

Toby

Ooerrr, Have you checked their Terms and Conditions?

Do they actually permit you to host websites with that package?

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So your upload speed is 256K or 448K or something like that? That's going to be horrible if you get any real visitors.

Why don't you put your sites with a good web host as they have 100Mbits in both directions?

Also I assume you only have 1 line so any faults your sites are going to be until it's fixed where as a proper host will take bandwidth from many providers thus loosing one has little or no effect.

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Just looked on the Opal site and upload is up to 1MBit - it's not too bad if it's just simple web sites and visitors are not that far away.

I guess a dedicated server might be a better option. Can get them for around £40 per month these days.

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Or a VPS or from what I've seen shared hosting would probably be fine.

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I understand what you're saying and when I get 'real' visitors I will definately be looking at pro hosting of some sort, but for now just to get going the 1Mbit will be more than ample,

One of the first quesitons we asked was can we host out own website, so no problems there.

The good news is when I put the vigor back on it was back to 1-2 seconds. woo hooo!!,

So the problem is def the router fire wall combo, thanks milonic, deepsand and everyone else,

bad news is we paid good money for the sonic and it's supposed to be a good bit of kit so we're going to try to fix the sonic, we'll get someone on the case hopefully cost less than a new vigor router..

It would be nice to know what the problem is.

Post back if you ever find out.

Good luck.

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Hi,

Been looking at a Vigor 2820, but it doesn't say it has PPTP for the VPN support, which we need also,

Does anyone know of a recommended router with a good firewall, PPTP, ADSL2 and a good price!

Thanks

Just logged into my 2820Vn, there's a tick box Enable PPTP VPN Service on the VPN settings.

If you want to know if you can connect to it from Windows without adding anything then yes you can and it works well, it's how I connect when I'm out.

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Excellent, thanks Speed,

Just found another page on Draytek on the 2820 but this one bothers to mention the VPN, which the other didn't!, weird.

Looks good for this one then,

Thanks!

If we ever get to the bottom of the problem with the sonicwall zyxel combo I'll let you know.

Have a look at the user manual - just uploaded it for you http://www.milonic.com/vigor-2820-user-guide.pdf - I'm sure Draytek won't mind me putting it up as they'll be getting a sale out of it.

To be honest, i've not found a router yet that comes anywhere close to this beast for price

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DrayTek Vigor 2820Vn VPN Wireless-N Annex M ADSL 2+ Router, VoIP, Dual WAN, 3G Support pretty much list every thing, also happens to be where I got mine from.

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Great,

Altho I think this one has everything we need, for a few quid less..

Draytek Vigor 2820 Dual WAN/ADSL 2+ VPN Router w/ Annex M & 3G Support

Don't need the VoIP.

Thanks for that, filed!

Yes, that's the same one just no VoIP or Wireless network.

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Argh; no e-mail alerts re. this thread since 16:04 EST, 2 days ago!

The takeaway lesson here is to, whenever possible, change only one thing at a time.

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