[outages] Someone horked Google

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 09:47:17AM -0500, Chris Adams wrote:
> Once upon a time, Jay Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> said:
> > I'm getting "No site configured at this address" from www.google.com, and
> > 
> > """
> > Not Found
> > 
> > The requested URL /search was not found on this server.
> > Apache/2.2.9 (Debian) PHP/5.2.6-1+lenny16 with Suhosin-Patch Server at www.google.com Port 81
> > """
> > 
> > from a search-box search in Firefox 13.0.1/Win, which was working half an
> > hour ago.  I'm sure this is both transient and scope-limited, but it sure
> > as hell is amusing.  :-)
> 
> That looks a lot more likely that someone horked you.

I'd generally agree, but the problem is getting the hard evidence
(packet captures would be the most useful).

Google doesn't listen on port 81 (but keep reading):

$ telnet www.google.com 81
Trying 74.125.224.50...
^C

Going to use some Apache config terminology here, so if you aren't
familiar with httpd.conf then bow out at this point:

It may be that Google has reverse-proxy servers (or LBs that can do
some of this) where the Apache servers on the back end (think
192.168.x.x), listen on TCP port 81, for /search requests.  These srvers
could use NameVirtualHost to ensure that they honour a Host: header of
www.google.com too.

Those servers could have their ServerTokens parameter set to disclose
what TCP port the server configuration binds to.  And this is exactly
how you'd see the above ServerTokens footer.

I strongly think this is what's happening in Jay's situation with
Google.  However, I read his email about eBay/etc. having complexities
too, to which would require the same kind of analysis.

If there is a *transparent* proxy involved on the ISPs side, well then,
that makes things very very difficult to analyse.

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                   jdc at koitsu.org |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                http://jdc.koitsu.org/ |
| Mountain View, CA, US                                            |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.             PGP 4BD6C0CB |