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Bug #22297 Timeout when reading file from URL
Submitted: 2003-02-19 09:10 UTC Modified: 2003-03-03 04:01 UTC
From: sp at m-me dot dk Assigned:
Status: Closed Package: Apache2 related
PHP Version: 4.3.2-dev OS: Windows
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
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From: sp at m-me dot dk
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 [2003-02-19 09:10 UTC] sp at m-me dot dk
When using the function file() or file_get_contents() added in PHP 4.3.0 I have a problem when I try to read a URL instead of reading directly from the filesystem.

This works fine:
file("test.txt");

This creates an "Internal Server Error" the webserver:
file("http://localhost/test.txt");

I've testet this on 3 different systems:
System 1:
----------------------------------------
Windows XP Pro sp1
Apache 2.0.43
PHP 4.3.1

System 2:
----------------------------------------
Windows 2000 Server (build 5002195) sp3
Apache 2.0.43
PHP 4.3.0

System 3:
----------------------------------------
Linux 2.4.20
Apache 1.3.27
PHP 4.3.1


This is what happend on the 3 systems:
System 1:
----------------------------------------
The browser is loading for about 5 minutes (more than the the maximum PHP execution time!?) then displays an "Internal Server Error" and writes this in the webserver error log:

[Wed Feb 19 14:54:40 2003] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] Premature end of script headers: php.exe, referer: http://localhost/test/readfile/

System 2:
----------------------------------------
The browser is loading for 30 sec. (the maximum PHP execution time) and then displays this in the browser:

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in
C:\data\htdocs\fil1.php on line 3

and this in the webserver error log:
[Wed Feb 19 15:32:41 2003] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] Premature end of script headers: php.exe, referer: http://localhost/

System 3:
----------------------------------------
On the this system (the Linux system) both examples worked without any errors. Besides the operating system the biggest difference between the other systems and this one is the Apache version. Could it be Apache 2.x vs. PHP 4.3.x that was the problem?

/watson

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 [2003-02-19 09:13 UTC] wez@php.net
Please try using this CVS snapshot:

  http://snaps.php.net/php4-STABLE-latest.tar.gz
 
For Windows:
 
  http://snaps.php.net/win32/php4-win32-STABLE-latest.zip

There was a fix for a problem in the HTTP reader that went into CVS last night; please try a stable snapshot and let us know if this problem is fixed for you.
 [2003-02-19 17:29 UTC] sp at m-me dot dk
I've tried the latest stable windows release (4.3.2-dev) on System 1, but with the same results.

By the way. I must have been a little tired when writing about the symtoms from system 1 and 2. They are instead like this:

No matter what the maximum PHP execution time is set to, the script is running in 2 minutes before it stops and writes:

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 5 seconds exceeded in C:\wwwroot\test\readfile\read.php on line 3

In this example the max PHP execution time is set to 5 sec, but first after 2 min the script stops. The Apache timeout is set to 300 sec (5 min).

For some reason I found that it is not always that the webservers error log contain any information about the event. But when it does it looks like this:

[Wed Feb 19 16:14:31 2003] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] Premature end of script headers: php.exe

With Apache 2.0.43 and Windows I've tested this on the following PHP versions:
4.2.3      No output to the browser, Internal Server Error
4.3.0      Error message outputted to browser after 2 min
4.3.1      Error message outputted to browser after 2 min
4.3.2-dev  Error message outputted to browser after 2 min

/watson
 [2003-02-19 19:02 UTC] sniper@php.net
Please try using this CVS snapshot:

  http://snaps.php.net/php4-STABLE-latest.tar.gz
 
For Windows:
 
  http://snaps.php.net/win32/php4-win32-STABLE-latest.zip


And check that your php.ini has this setting:
default_socket_timeout = 60

If not, add it and try again..


 [2003-02-19 19:03 UTC] sniper@php.net
Forget getting newer snapshot, just try adjusting that 
php.ini directive..

 [2003-02-20 06:42 UTC] sp at m-me dot dk
When setting default_socket_timeout to...
5  the script runs in  10
10 the script runs in  20
60 the script runs in 120

With all of the above the script still ends up showing:

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 5 seconds exceeded in C:\wwwroot\test\readfile\read.php on line 3

...when trying to read a file from a URL.
 [2003-02-20 14:39 UTC] wez@php.net
Your system has determined two alternative addresses to attempt to contact for localhost and it attempts each alternative for default_socket_timeout in seconds.

For some reason it is not connecting successfully.
Please try the following script:
<?php
set_time_limit(600);
ini_set('default_socket_timeout', 5);
$x = file("http://localhost/test.txt");
var_dump($x);
var_dump($http_response_header);
?>

and report back here.
It would also help if you could try fetching the same url using:

curl -i http://localhost/test.txt

and paste the output here.
 [2003-02-20 19:02 UTC] sp at m-me dot dk
The script supplied gives the right output, but still takes "default_socket_timeout * 2" seconds. I found that if I removed the first line "set_time_limit(600);" the script faild again - Still I could not get rid of the long timeout.

The output from the code was:
--------------------------------------------------
array(1) {
  [0]=>
  string(6) "foobar"
}
array(9) {
  [0]=>
  string(15) "HTTP/1.1 200 OK"
  [1]=>
  string(35) "Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 00:43:31 GMT"
  [2]=>
  string(29) "Server: Apache/2.0.43 (Win32)"
  [3]=>
  string(44) "Last-Modified: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 15:48:22 GMT"
  [4]=>
  string(23) "ETag: "37a6-6-d5528ab3""
  [5]=>
  string(20) "Accept-Ranges: bytes"
  [6]=>
  string(17) "Content-Length: 6"
  [7]=>
  string(17) "Connection: close"
  [8]=>
  string(44) "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1"
}
--------------------------------------------------

The output from the curl command (had to install Cygwin) was:
--------------------------------------------------
$ curl -i http://localhost/test/readfile/test.txt
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 00:41:16 GMT
Server: Apache/2.0.43 (Win32)
Last-Modified: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 15:48:22 GMT
ETag: "37a6-6-d5528ab3"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 6
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

foobar
--------------------------------------------------
 [2003-02-20 19:20 UTC] sp at m-me dot dk
I did a little test to try to find out when the script fails. It looks like the script fails everytime the "max_execution_time" is smaller than "2 * default_socket_timeout".

max_execution_time  default_socket_timeout  output
------------------------------------------------------
60                  10                      no error
25                  10                      no error
22                  10                      no error
21                  10                      no error
20                  10                      error
15                  10                      error
10                  10                      error
 5                  10                      error

(when I write "no error" the script still runs for "2 * default_socket_timeout" seconds though)
 [2003-02-20 19:31 UTC] sp at m-me dot dk
wez@php.net writes:
"Your system has determined two alternative addresses to attempt to contact for localhost and it attempts each alternative for default_socket_timeout in seconds."

I'm not into how the file() function tries to read an URL, but after what wez@php.net writes it seems that it tries a couple of different methods for reading the URL if the previous ones does not work. For me it looks like the first 2 does not work, but the 3th does.

If that is right it then makes sense that the "max_execution_time" has to be larger than "2 * default_socket_timeout" (because the first two tries have to time out fist)..
 [2003-02-21 05:00 UTC] wez@php.net
Can you try using "127.0.0.1" instead of "localhost" in your script?
If that fixes it for you, I will add equivalent code into the PHP core itself (when running under windows).

 [2003-02-21 05:13 UTC] wez@php.net
Could you also paste the output of this script:

<?php
var_dump(gethostbynamel("localhost"));
?>
 [2003-02-21 06:26 UTC] sp at m-me dot dk
Using 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost had no effect. The script still took "2 * default_socket_timeout" seconds.

The var_dump(gethostbynamel("localhost")); returned (with no delay):
--------------------------------------------------------
array(1) {
  [0]=>
  string(9) "127.0.0.1"
}
--------------------------------------------------------
 [2003-02-21 07:54 UTC] wez@php.net
Are you sure that you have your DNS (client) settings correct on the windows machine(s)?
eg: multiple entries for localhost in the hosts file, or multiple domains to auto-search when a suffix is missing configured in your DNS server (if you have one)?

It doesn't make sense for PHP to attempt multiple addresses when it can only detect a single address.

Is there any chance you can try apache 1.3.x on one of the windows servers to see if that has an effect?

 [2003-02-21 08:10 UTC] sp at m-me dot dk
I have tried 3 different addresses:
 localhost
 127.0.0.1
 www.the-real-domain.com

...all with the same result. Further more I have tried this on 3 different machines (two Windows XP and one Windows 2000 - some even on different networks).

The thing with Apache 1.3.x vs. Apache 2.x have crossed my mind as I wrote earlier. I'll try to install Apache 1.3.x and return with the results here asap.
 [2003-02-21 08:32 UTC] sp at m-me dot dk
Hi... I'm back :)

I tried the script on a Windows XP sp1 running Apache 1.3.43 and PHP 4.3.2-dev. There was no errors at all. So it has something to do with Apache 2.x and PHP.
 [2003-02-21 09:07 UTC] sniper@php.net
Reclassified tas Apache2 related bug.

 [2003-02-21 09:09 UTC] sniper@php.net
oops..forgot to ask: Are you using the CGI binary or the apache2 module?

 [2003-02-21 09:39 UTC] sp at m-me dot dk
CGI binary

I have added this to my httpd.conf:
----------------------------------------------
DirectoryIndex index.html index.html.var index.php
ScriptAlias /php/ "c:/php/"
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php 
AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps
Action application/x-httpd-php "/php/php.exe"
 [2003-02-23 05:05 UTC] sniper@php.net
And what about php.ini? Have you set the settings required
for IIS in it?

 [2003-02-23 05:06 UTC] sniper@php.net
oops..forget my last comment, wrong bug report.


 [2003-02-23 05:13 UTC] sniper@php.net
Please check this page:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Web/Web_Servers/Apache/Q_20396513.html

I think this is just configuration error..you're mixing
the module configuration with CGI configuration..

 [2003-02-26 17:37 UTC] sp at m-me dot dk
Back... Sorry for the delay :)

I have looked around to find out how to setup Apache 2.x to use PHP. I do think that I do it right. Take a look at:
http://dk.php.net/manual/en/install.apache2.php#install.apache2.windows

But let me know if I am wrong.

Anyway. I saw that a new version of Apache was released (v2.0.44) and tried this one - And it actually seems to work! I will just try this on one other installation tomorrow before I will say that upgrading Apache solves the problem. So don't close it yet.
 [2003-02-27 08:44 UTC] sniper@php.net
keep at "Feedback" status until that then..

 [2003-03-03 04:01 UTC] sp at m-me dot dk
Yes... Upgrading to Apache 2.0.44 solves the problem. Don't know if it was Apaches problem the whole time, or it was/is the mixture of PHP and Apache that creates the problem.

/watson
 
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