[BALUG-Talk] -->BALUG-Admin Re: Possible solution of blankness or editing outline-only on BALUG DokuWiki?

Sat Apr 24 04:40:57 UTC 2021

I'm going to suggest taking this discussion to the
BALUG-Admin <BALUG-Admin@lists.balug.org>
https://lists.balug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/balug-admin
list, as,
though the matter does involved Linux somewhat generally, it's much
more specific and relevant to BALUG and the specific inner
workings thereof.  So, expect my next update and further communications
on the matter to be on the BALUG-Admin list, and I'll likely start it off with
latest update(s) and some background references/links on the matter, at least
as of late.

Also ...
dates, lists, number of members:
YYYY-MM-DD announce talk admin
2021-04-01      832  259    35
https://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-admin/2021-April/001046.html
I'm guestmating probably not around 259 subscribers are that interested
in these particularly details ... but quite possibly closer to about
35 are ... or would be.
I may well also put up a wiki page regarding findings/developments ...
or maybe update an older one if such suitable wiki page already exists.

Anyway, I still have some 'work' to do ...
# date -Iseconds && df -h /var
2021-04-24T04:39:59+00:00
Filesystem             Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/balug-var  6.4G  5.9G  287M  96% /var
#

> From: "Michael Paoli" <Michael.Paoli@cal.berkeley.edu>
> Subject: Re: [BALUG-Talk] Possible solution of blankness or editing  
> outline-only on BALUG DokuWiki?
> Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2021 08:44:22 -0700

> Well, not out of the woods yet.
>
> Have done fair bit of compression (even using xz -9) of some
> moderately older data on /var ... and have grown /var several
> times, ... yet it filled up again very recently (or exceedingly
> close - I saw it at 100% again, but that's probably rounded, so
> at least >99.5%).
>
> So, at present, now have:
> # df -h /var
> Filesystem             Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> /dev/mapper/balug-var  6.4G  5.7G  491M  93% /var
> #
> And very recently (only few days back) that was:
>> df -h /var
>> Filesystem             Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
>> /dev/mapper/balug-var  4.9G  4.5G  190M  97% /var
> Can't just keep growing /var indefinitely.
> Much of the volume is mail and related - logs, queued mail,
> bounces & failures, mail to listadmin and postmaster, etc., and mostly
> lots of other nuisance stuff - fail2ban database takes fair bit of space,
> but trimming what that holds would increase data in other logs - notably
> of lots of nuisance failed login/authentication attempts and the like.
>
> And, even if I caught it before completely full, some services (e.g.
> exim4) will proactively stop processing when the free filesystem
> space runs too low.
>
> So, yeah, I'll need to do some more work on it.  May need to analyze why
> it's ballooning more than it was in past - what's the nature of the
> problematic traffic that keeps driving up the storage.
>
> I suspect it's mostly spam (and attempts thereof) and bad bots
> doing/attempting stuff ... essentially all some type(s) of nefarious
> unwanted traffic chewing up resources.
>
> So, in only a couple days or so, it's already nearly 1.5 GiB more data,
> and that's already after having done fair bit of aggressive data
> data compression on some older data (e.g. some of the older mail data
> easily compressed from around 200 of MiB to under a few tens of MB ...
> and I even moved the compressed off of the /var filesystem).
>
> So, ..., yeah, miscreants on 'da Internet ... more work for me to do.  :-/
>
> Would also be nice to get some of that /var space back, and not have to give
> so much of it over to what's basically mostly unintersting crud.
>
> And, have had stuff like this happen before, ... e.g. like bad bots trying
> to register on wiki - and chewing up huge volumes of space ... that's why
> there's no self-registration option anymore ... blame it on abusers on
> 'da Internet.  Manual registration only now.  Even captcha's weren't really
> enough for most of that ... bad bots still pounded away and repeatedly
> filled up log space.  Maybe more fail2ban config would help that ... but then
> that also ends up chewing up additional space with its database ...
>
> # du -x /var | sort -bnr | head -n 12
> 5866812 /var
> 2102592 /var/lib
> 1249060 /var/log
> 1017624 /var/spool
> 1015100 /var/mail
> 932200  /var/spool/exim4
> 731780  /var/lib/fail2ban
> 616584  /var/lib/clamav
> 531456  /var/log/apache2
> 505952  /var/log/exim4
> 491980  /var/spool/exim4/input
> 364892  /var/spool/exim4/msglog
> #
>
>> From: "aaronco36 via BALUG-Talk" <balug-talk@lists.balug.org>
>> Subject: Re: [BALUG-Talk] Possible solution of blankness or editing  
>> outline-only on BALUG DokuWiki?
>> Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2021 16:21:14 +0000 (UTC)
>
>> Quoting Michael Paoli <Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu> from [1]:
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> Thanks for the report, but I'm unable to reproduce the issue.
>> Anyone else able to reproduce it?  Are you/anyone seeing the
>> issue at this time?  Anyone else also see it earlier?
>>
>> I've tried the following on:  
>> https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php without being able to  
>> reproduce the issue:
>> Chromium
>> Chromium incognito mode
>> Firefox
>> Firefox private browsing mode
>> Lynx
>> curl
>> wget
>> Chome on Android from another ISP
>> Chrom icognito mode on Android from another ISP
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>
>> Cut-and-pasted a text screen-capture and submitted it as a  
>> [BALUG-Test] 'Test of BALUG Wiki pages' posting yesterday morning;  
>> see [2].
>> AFAICT, that "blankness or editing outline-only issue" for BALUG  
>> DokuWiki pages [3] and [4] occurred from before 08:00am PDT up  
>> through the late morning, and then went away by mid-afternoon  
>> yesterday.
>> Probably reloaded both those BALUG DokuWiki pages a half-dozen  
>> times or so over the morning time-period using mostly Firefox-ESR  
>> standard mode and Firefox-ESR private browsing mode, and maybe once  
>> or twice using TOR browser in its [least] Safe mode.
>>
>> Same results for all browsers used to test those pair of pages  
>> during that entire morning time-period.
>>
>>
>> Quoting Michael Paoli <Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu> from [5]:
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> That may have done it.
>> Looks like I need to add more space to /var and/or clean some more stuff
>> off of it:
>> df -h /var
>> Filesystem             Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
>> /dev/mapper/balug-var  4.9G  4.5G  190M  97% /var
>> #
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>
>> Thanks much, Michael, for effectively diagnosing and resolving the  
>> issue! :-)
>>
>> Besides considering the issue arising from the DokuWiki site itself  
>> or BALUG's device /dev/mapper/balug-var, was also considering the  
>> possibility that the issue might have arisen from my own browser  
>> client.
>>
>> Why so?
>>
>> Well, there was no issue whatsoever with successfully loading BALUG  
>> DokuWiki pages [3] and [4] throughout Sunday and Monday of this week.
>> What changed on Tuesday afternoon was upgrading Firefox-ESR to a  
>> slightly higher, minor version as per 'less  
>> /var/log/apt/history.log' :
>>> Start-Date: 2021-04-20  14:10:03
>>> Commandline: apt upgrade
>>> Upgrade: firefox-esr:amd64 (78.9.0esr-1~deb10u1, 78.10.0esr-1~deb10u1)
>>> End-Date: 2021-04-20  14:10:15
>>
>> One or more bugs in the upgraded FF 78.10.0esr could have  
>> conceivably rendered text and links in the BALUG DokuWiki  
>> incorrectly afterwards, as remote as this possibility might seem to  
>> be.
>> It's good to know that this wasn't the case at all, and that this  
>> latest Firefox-ESR browser was fine after all :-)
>>
>> Thanks again Michael!
>>
>> -Aaron
>>
>> ===========================
>> REFERENCES
>> ===========================
>> [1]https://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-talk/2021-April/000220.html
>> [2]https://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-test/2021/000048.html
>> [3]https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php
>> [4]https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:offered_wanted_hardware_etc
>> [5]https://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-talk/2021-April/000221.html
>> ===========================