It seems I'm getting strange results when browsing mefi via proxy. Is it something I'm doing wrong?

February 29, 2004 5:39 PM

I've been getting, interesting behavior using metafilter through a proxy server. (The reason I'm using a proxy has to do with some annoying behavior by both Opera and Mozilla under FreeBSD.) wwwoffled just doesn't get the page at all. apache2 running as a proxy does get the page after more than two minutes. This behavior appears to be unique to metafilter.

Turning off proxying for metafilter in the browser works much better. I'm mostly satisfied with this arrangement but the nerd in me is curious as to why. (And the community-oriented person in me wants to describe this problem for other folks who may need to search for this problem.) Any clues?
posted by KirkJobSluder to Bugs at 5:39 PM (5 comments total)

Have you tried tcpdumping (or use ethereal, if that takes your fancy) the actual connecting with MeFi that your proxies do? Verbose logs might also give insight.
posted by fvw at 12:57 AM on March 1, 2004

Yuck, looks like I traded in in ipv6 problem for another.

07:22:29.769936 eyegor.jobsluder.net.4164 > dns1.ipltin.sbcglobal.net.domain: 30921+ AAAA? metafilter.com. (32)
07:22:29.770130 eyegor.jobsluder.net.4165 > dns1.chcgil.sbcglobal.net.domain: 15652+ AAAA? metafilter.com. (32)
07:22:29.791584 dns1.ipltin.sbcglobal.net.domain > eyegor.jobsluder.net.4164: 30921 0/1/0 (79)
07:22:29.792289 eyegor.jobsluder.net.4166 > 209.10.108.201.domain: 12551 AAAA? metafilter.com. (32)
07:22:29.792540 dns1.chcgil.sbcglobal.net.domain > eyegor.jobsluder.net.4165: 15652 0/1/0 (79)
07:22:29.792567 eyegor.jobsluder.net > dns1.chcgil.sbcglobal.net: icmp: eyegor.jobsluder.net udp port 4165 unreachable
07:22:30.909942 eyegor.jobsluder.net.4168 > dns1.ipltin.sbcglobal.net.domain: 55273+ AAAA? metafilter.com. (32)
07:22:30.910142 eyegor.jobsluder.net.4169 > dns1.chcgil.sbcglobal.net.domain: 28730+ AAAA? metafilter.com. (32)
posted by KirkJobSluder at 4:25 AM on March 1, 2004

Ok, I told my local nameserver to simply reject AAAA requests for metafilter.com and not pass them to the outside world and that fixed the problem.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 4:38 AM on March 1, 2004

Looks like symptoms of some deeper problem then, as metafilter.com has no AAAA records, like 90% of all sites out there. No software, IPv6 capable or not should choke on that.
posted by fvw at 7:37 AM on March 1, 2004

Looks like symptoms of some deeper problem then, as metafilter.com has no AAAA records, like 90% of all sites out there. No software, IPv6 capable or not should choke on that.

On the other hand. Metafilter seems to be the only site that does choke and I'm honestly baffled as to why. (Not that, at this point, it is anything other than a bit of trivia.)
posted by KirkJobSluder at 8:04 AM on March 1, 2004