Check if a constant file request is flooding the server

Question

I'm new to this sort of thing so forgive me if I ask anything stupid.

I am using moodle (open source LMS), it has a feature where you can upload a scorm package which requires a reliable internet connection for reporting to work. Therefore it has a piece of code that sends a request to a txt file constantly and if the request takes longer than 2 seconds a popup is shown to the user saying your internet connection is too slow.

My internet connection is reliable and stable but this popup is constantly popping up and disappearing. I'm certain it's not the internet connection, as there is no way it would take 2 seconds to load the txt file.

I'm thinking it must have something to do with the server configuration or the server thinks it's being flooded so denies access to the file. How do I check if this is the cause?

The server is an AWS server and runs Ubuntu 14.04.

This thread I found shows people with the same problem, but their solution was to comment out the check. I'd rather find the cause of the problem.

Answer 1

I assume that you are using Apache to serve the files. I would recommend first finding out how long does it really take for Apache to serve those files.

Here is a good article about that: http://www.ducea.com/2008/02/06/apache-logs-how-long-does-it-take-to-serve-a-request/

If indeed it takes long to serve the files, then I would start breaking it down and try to find out how long does it take for apache to generate the content/page. I.e is it really network or server/Apache configuration issue.

Have you also checked from AWS console that your instance is not overloaded (CPU usage).