By gbanse on

I keep seeing some really whacked out URLs in the logs under administer. The resources simply don't exist and I can't figure out where the user is getting them from.

Example: "/some_directory/misc/drupal.css"

"some_directory" exists.
"misc" on the other hand isn't something I created (no directory no URL alias) and why "drupal.css"?

I have no idea as to how these URL strings are being generated. Is the user attempting a hack that I don't know about? Is the Taxonomy module for Drupal hiccuping occassionally and spewing random URLs? Does someone have an idea as to what might be causing these?

Comments

gbanse’s picture

gbanse commented

I take part of that back. I did find the "misc" directory and drupal.css. But why is the URL getting messed up?

gbanse’s picture

gbanse commented

Am I the only one who has has this problem? I just noticed today that someone attempted to view an image with an improper URL. The image filename is correct but the path isn't. The second half of the path is correct but the first directory isn't. Again, I'm stumped as to where these URLs are coming from. Any suggestions of what might be happening would be appreciated!

To see the site: www.farm-garden.com

robertdouglass’s picture

robertdouglass commented

In the path you list above, I would expect /some_directory to correspond to the $base_url variable in your settings.php (conf.php in 4.5.x) file. Is this true?

What kind of message is this path appearing in? 404 Page not found? Something else?

The misc/drupal.css file is referenced in each page and controls some of the very most basic look-and-feel elements of Drupal. It is rather essential that Drupal is able to find it. If it is showing up in your watchdog logs, it is probably because your site is not configured correctly. In particular, I expect the value of $base_url and the actual directory structure of your site to be at odds. Is the site functioning well otherwise?

- Robert Douglass

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robertdouglass’s picture

robertdouglass commented

I just saw your site and confirmed that the drupal.css is where it is expected to be:
http://www.farm-garden.com/misc/drupal.css

So I come back to my question, in what context are you getting reports about /some_directory/misc/drupal.css ?

Also helpful would be to know your Drupal version and contrib modules installed.

- Robert Douglass

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gbanse’s picture

gbanse commented

I'm seeing the errors as 404s. The initial part of the path "some_directory" changes. If it were consistent then I could easily see it as a configuration problem but since it seems to be random I haven't a clue.

Version: Drupal 4.6.2 updated to Drupal 4.6.3

Modules installed are:
atom 4.6.0 - not enabled
contact_dir 4.6.0 - enabled
event 4.6.0 - not enabled
front_page 4.6.0 - not enabled
image 4.6.0 - enabled
img_assist 4.6.0 - enabled
pathauto 4.6.0 - not enabled
print 4.6.0 - enabled
scheduler 4.6.0 - enabled
sitemenu 4.6.0 - enabled
survey 4.6.0 - enabled
taxonomy_access 4.6.0 - enabled
taxonomy_context 4.6.0 - enabled
tinymce 4.6.0 - enabled

The site seems to function fine for the most part. At least once a day I see requests like this:
growing-vegetables/atom/atom/atom/atom/atom/atom/atom/atom/a

Not sure why since the atom module isn't enabled.

But the 404s that I'm getting are viewable when I go to the administer link. The site's cache is turned off though I am using a PHP accelerator.

Base URL: $base_url = 'http://www.farm-garden.com';

robertdouglass’s picture

robertdouglass commented

Maybe it's a URL from a different installation going astray?

Your final recourse, however, would be to add something like this untested code to the watchdog funciton in bootstrap.inc:

function watchdog($type, $message, $severity = WATCHDOG_NOTICE, $link = NULL) {
  global $user;

  // alert that we're seeing the error
  if (strstr($message, 'misc/drupal.css')) {
  	watchdog('my debug', print_r(debug_backtrace(), true)); 
  }
  db_query("INSERT INTO {watchdog} ..... etc.

Then you could sort your logs by 'my debug' and see where the error was coming from.

- Robert Douglass

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My sites: www.hornroller.com, www.robshouse.net

gbanse’s picture

gbanse commented

I might do that. The previous incarnation of the site was a hand-built CMS. I'd recognize the URLs if they were from that version and these don't match.

I've also noted that I've got a ton of 404s on different files with legitimate URLs! Like robots.txt for one! Checked my logs today and found out of the 27 times robots.txt was requested, 7 404d.

There may be something else going on here. I've put in a trouble ticket with the host as well. But I can't shake the feeling that the issue is with how I've installed Drupal since the start of these problems coincides with my conversion to Drupal.

gbanse’s picture

gbanse commented

I may be my own worst enemy...

I just realized I had started the upgrade from 4.6.2 to 4.6.3 but hadn't completed it because I thought all I needed to do was to apply the xmlrpc patch. Hoping this will fix these recurring problems.

gbanse’s picture

gbanse commented

This is just too weird. I installed the latest version of Drupal over the existing files. The problem still exists - URLs that just don't make sense.

gbanse’s picture

gbanse commented

After much searching I located this thread: http://drupal.org/node/13148 I'm not convinced this will resolve the issue I've implemented the patch and am keeping my fingers crossed.