Abuse Of Bandwidth - Here and at Raganuga.Com

Someone figured it's a good idea to abuse the Raganuga.Com website by hogging 15 GB of bandwidth yesterday, although the site only has a total of about 800 MB of content.

Thank you, 165.247.74.5 on Earthlink from Atlanta, for downloading each file dozens of times over. You are now banned from the site. As are you, 164.100.149.103 on Nicnet from Manipur, with your over 3 GB from a couple of days back. You are now firewalled from the entire server.

I have now moved the audio files outside the webroot, and will be coding a script to pull them from there and to prevent access from each IP to a max of three instances per each file per day.

I have recently downloaded some software that allows me to make copies of whole websites on to my hard disk and if that would take up too much of your bandwidth. I am particularly interested in the kirtan MP3s so should I not use it or just download them one at a time?

Ananga

I don't mind if people download one copy of everything. That's about 600 MB if you grab all lectures and 96kbps kirtans. Just make sure the software isn't buggy, that it works properly. After all, the files are there to be downloaded.

I don't know what that fellow downloading 16 GB used, I suspect it was done to intentionally cause harm. Bandwidth is not free, after all; we have to pay for BW that goes over the allocated quota. BW usage is not a problem if it goes for the right cause; however, we obviously wouldn't like to pay for misuse.

QUOTE(ananga @ May 30 2004, 11:56 AM)

I wonder, however, how it'll handle dynamic content such as the variables passed around in the URLs; generally such programs are good only for static content.

If you downloaded the entire site, you would unnecessarily download the 32kbps versions of the kirtans. They would probably not do much good, given that you'd also have the 96kbps versions.

Madhava!

I downloaded yesterday 9 files of Radha Rasa Sudhanidhi. Since I use earthlink and the ip address that you mentioned is close enough to the one which I am log in right now, and I do not know if earthlink use dynamic ip. I want to assure you that I only downloaded each file once via modem. Slow, but the only thing my budget allow.

I used a download manager. Download three files at a time and put the rest in a Q. The download manager never download a file twice without asking, impossible. Perhaps the patriot act is kicking in. Uncle Sam is watching. You Call then SOB.

I'm positive it wasn't you. I have already compared the IP blocks to the member database here. The abuse occured over some eight hours or so (haven't parsed the logs that closely yet), and that would take at least a 600 KB/s (ca. 5000 kbps) downlink running at full speed all the time, so there's no way you could ever do that on a modem.

This is either intentional abuse or a real odd server glitch. For what I could decipher from the server logs this far, it is intentional abuse. Anyway, I'm working my way around this and the audio will be available again tonight.

The audio-files are now back online at Raganuga.Com. Each individual is now restricted to three attempts to download each audio file in a day. After that, they will receive an error message notifying them of the daily limitation.

I take it that the new system hasn't caused any problems, since I hear no complaints.

I'm going to have to implement a similar system with all video content at Gaudiya Discussions to prevent both intentional and accidental abuse of server resources.

Here is a quote of my message to a member who is using Download Accelerator to download files:

QUOTE

Something with that program is going berserk. The server logs show that from your IP address over 700 MB has been downloaded over the past three days, which is far more than the total available content of the entire site put together. Please don't use that program for downloading from GD. Something in it is disfunctional, and if it keeps doing tricks like this regularly it's going to get pretty expensive to me, because bandwidth is not free.

A demonstration of the problem:

CODE

200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:07:53:00 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4846576 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:07:53:02 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4834572 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:07:52:57 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4909074 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:07:52:55 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4755126 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:07:54:39 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4683080 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:07:54:17 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4794364 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:07:54:16 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4847215 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:07:54:18 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4785577 "-" "DA 5.0"

...
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:07:59:12 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4795004 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:07:59:13 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4742688 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:07:59:11 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4674818 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:07:59:12 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4744086 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:00:12 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4630644 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:00:10 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4704948 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:00:09 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4702595 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:00:14 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4756193 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:02:56 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4530190 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:03:41 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4521928 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:02:53 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4679862 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:02:21 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4576952 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:02:22 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4598064 "-" "DA 5.0"
...
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:04:16 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4473821 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:04:17 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4513666 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:04:19 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4476172 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:04:22 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4625507 "-" "DA 5.0"
...
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:06:34 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4366938 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:06:33 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4371968 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:06:36 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4442692 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:06:31 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4533632 "-" "DA 5.0"
...
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:09:48 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4425994 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:09:43 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4190692 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:09:51 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4175352 "-" "DA 5.0"
200.193.XXX.XXX- - [03/Jul/2004:08:09:32 +0100] "GET /MOV00826.MPG HTTP/1.1" 206 4364528 "-" "DA 5.0"

QUOTE

Etc. over 200 times!

So please do not use all these download managers unless really absolutely necessary. Some of them are really disfunctional and even if they don't create a bandwidth problem like this, they place considerable stress on the server if dozens of simultaneous connections are made.

Some of the most common download managers are now blocked from downloading from the site as we do not wish to waste bandwidth which costs money. Legitimate use of bandwidth is not an issue, wasting it is.

Tomorrow I will be installing here the same blocker I have already implemented at Raganuga.Com; it will log all attempts to download a file and will block access to any given file after the third attempt within the day.

Hi Madhava,

I'm really sad about this problems. I always use this program, because my connection speed is too slow.
Since you are getting this problem with others too, don't you think that the problem is on server?

No, it's not a server-end issue. I do not get this problem with others, at the moment is is only Download Accelerator.

Why don't you try some other program that can resume downloads but doesn't make dozens of connections at once.

QUOTE

Why don't you try some other program that can resume downloads but doesn't make dozens of connections at once.

Do you have any to recommend?

Not at the moment, I'd have to look into that. How fast/slow was your connection, again?

QUOTE

How fast/slow was your connection, again?

I don't known.

QUOTE(sadhaka108 @ Jul 5 2004, 03:42 AM)

I don't known.

Well, ADSL 512kbps, ADSL 256kbps, ISDN 128kbps, ISDN 64kbps, 56K modem...?

I take it that the system is working properly and nobody has experienced problems downloading the videos?

QUOTE(Madhava @ Jul 5 2004, 09:35 AM)

QUOTE(sadhaka108 @ Jul 5 2004, 03:42 AM)

I don't known.

Well, ADSL 512kbps, ADSL 256kbps, ISDN 128kbps, ISDN 64kbps, 56K modem...?

Here is written 56K modem, but it seens that don't work well. Maybe this is problem in telephone line.

Further research into this turns up the following info:

QUOTE

[Asking about a possible bug in the way the server logs bandwidth usage, since a 56K modem can only download 350MB max in a day.] The logging will be pretty much exact. But with him starting and stopping that many threads there will be large amounts of data which doesnt make it as far as is his modem which is being used up out of the server.

So these programs basically drain the bandwidth out of the server to somewhere high heavens without ever benefiting you all that much.

And now Granthamandira. This is unreal. 211.144.194.60 from China hammered the 30MB GGM archive file 10 GB worth yesterday, with a total of 600+ hits on the file. That file is temporarily offline until I install the abuse prevention system there, too.