intermittent rst messages on initial connection

Hi,

I've just reinstalled my operating system (Centos4) and Apache (2) for
use as a webserver and I am having problems ... when connecting to a
domain on the server, I get (intermittently but too often to let slip)
a RST message which results in "page not found" message in IE. These
messages are not logged by the server

I am not sure whether I have my Apache config wrong, or possibly
whether a firewall rule is causing the problem.... My server is running
virtual hosts and an SSL server

Here's what I have in my virtualhost section

NameVirtualHost 84.234.17.186:80

#addinfg this section manually

<VirtualHost 84.234.17.186:80>
DocumentRoot "/var/www/html/renegade-online.co.uk"
ServerName www.renegade-online.co.uk
<Directory "/var/www/html/renegade-online.co.uk">
allow from all
Options +Indexes
</Directory>
<Directory "/var/www/html/renegade-online.co.uk/badmin">
RedirectPermanent http://renegade-online.co.uk/badmin/(.*)$
"https://renegade-online.co.uk/badmin/$1"
AuthName "not-here please"
AuthType Basic
Satisfy all
AuthUserFile /var/auth/no-access-please
require valid-user
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>



<VirtualHost 84.234.17.186:80>
DocumentRoot "/home/sites/test/www"
ServerName www.reducelandfill.org
<Directory "/home/sites/test/www">
allow from all
Options +Indexes
</Directory>
LogLevel emerg
TransferLog /home/sites/test/logs/access
</VirtualHost>


<VirtualHost 84.234.17.186:80>
DocumentRoot "/home/sites/test2/www"
ServerName www.edinburgh-audiovisual.co.uk
<Directory "/home/sites/test2/www">
allow from all
Options +Indexes
</Directory>
LogLevel emerg
TransferLog /home/sites/test2/logs/access
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 84.234.17.186:80>
DocumentRoot "/var/www/html/thevenuedumfries.co.uk/web"
ServerName www.thevenuedumfries.co.uk
<Directory "/var/www/html/thevenuedumfries.co.uk/web">
allow from all
Options +Indexes
</Directory>
LogLevel emerg
TransferLog /var/www/html/thevenuedumfries.co.uk/logs/access
</VirtualHost>


The ServerName section is

ServerName www.renegade-online.co.uk:80


-------------------------------------------------------------

the ssl section has all this


General setup for the virtual host, inherited from global configuration
#DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"
#ServerName www.example.com:443

# Use separate log files for the SSL virtual host; note that LogLevel
# is not inherited from httpd.conf.
ErrorLog logs/ssl_error_log
TransferLog logs/ssl_access_log
LogLevel warn

# SSL Engine Switch:
# Enable/Disable SSL for this virtual host.
SSLEngine on

# SSL Cipher Suite:
# List the ciphers that the client is permitted to negotiate.
# See the mod_ssl documentation for a complete list.
SSLCipherSuite
ALL:!ADH:!EXPORT56:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM:+LOW:+SSL v2:+EXP

# Server Certificate:
# Point SSLCertificateFile at a PEM encoded certificate. If
# the certificate is encrypted, then you will be prompted for a
# pass phrase. Note that a kill -HUP will prompt again. A test
# certificate can be generated with `make certificate' under
# built time. Keep in mind that if you've both a RSA and a DSA
# certificate you can configure both in parallel (to also allow
# the use of DSA ciphers, etc.)
SSLCertificateFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt/server.crt
#SSLCertificateFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt/server-dsa.crt

# Server Private Key:
# If the key is not combined with the certificate, use this
# directive to point at the key file. Keep in mind that if
# you've both a RSA and a DSA private key you can configure
# both in parallel (to also allow the use of DSA ciphers, etc.)
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.key/server.key
#SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.key/server-dsa.key

# Server Certificate Chain:
# Point SSLCertificateChainFile at a file containing the
# concatenation of PEM encoded CA certificates which form the
# certificate chain for the server certificate. Alternatively
# the referenced file can be the same as SSLCertificateFile
# when the CA certificates are directly appended to the server
# certificate for convinience.
#SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt/ca.crt

# Certificate Authority (CA):
# Set the CA certificate verification path where to find CA
# certificates for client authentication or alternatively one
# huge file containing all of them (file must be PEM encoded)
# Note: Inside SSLCACertificatePath you need hash symlinks
# to point to the certificate files. Use the provided
# Makefile to update the hash symlinks after changes.
#SSLCACertificatePath /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt
#SSLCACertificateFile /usr/share/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt

# Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL):
# Set the CA revocation path where to find CA CRLs for client
# authentication or alternatively one huge file containing all
# of them (file must be PEM encoded)
# Note: Inside SSLCARevocationPath you need hash symlinks
# to point to the certificate files. Use the provided
# Makefile to update the hash symlinks after changes.
#SSLCARevocationPath /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crl
#SSLCARevocationFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crl/ca-bundle.crl

# Client Authentication (Type):
# Client certificate verification type and depth. Types are
# none, optional, require and optional_no_ca. Depth is a
# number which specifies how deeply to verify the certificate
# issuer chain before deciding the certificate is not valid.
#SSLVerifyClient require
#SSLVerifyDepth 10

# Access Control:
# With SSLRequire you can do per-directory access control based
# on arbitrary complex boolean expressions containing server
# variable checks and other lookup directives. The syntax is a
# mixture between C and Perl. See the mod_ssl documentation
# for more details.
#<Location />
#SSLRequire ( %{SSL_CIPHER} !~ m/^(EXP|NULL)/ \
# and %{SSL_CLIENT_S_DN_O} eq "Snake Oil, Ltd." \
# and %{SSL_CLIENT_S_DN_OU} in {"Staff", "CA", "Dev"} \
# and %{TIME_WDAY} >= 1 and %{TIME_WDAY} <= 5 \
# and %{TIME_HOUR} >= 8 and %{TIME_HOUR} <= 20 ) \
# or %{REMOTE_ADDR} =~ m/^192\.76\.162\.[0-9]+$/
#</Location>

# SSL Engine Options:
# Set various options for the SSL engine.
# o FakeBasicAuth:
# Translate the client X.509 into a Basic Authorisation. This
means that
# the standard Auth/DBMAuth methods can be used for access control.
The
# user name is the `one line' version of the client's X.509
certificate.
# Note that no password is obtained from the user. Every entry in
the user
# file needs this password: `xxj31ZMTZzkVA'.
# o ExportCertData:
# This exports two additional environment variables:
SSL_CLIENT_CERT and
# SSL_SERVER_CERT. These contain the PEM-encoded certificates of
the
# server (always existing) and the client (only existing when
client
# authentication is used). This can be used to import the
certificates
# into CGI scripts.
# o StdEnvVars:
# This exports the standard SSL/TLS related `SSL_*' environment
variables.
# Per default this exportation is switched off for performance
reasons,
# because the extraction step is an expensive operation and is
usually
# useless for serving static content. So one usually enables the
# exportation for CGI and SSI requests only.
# o StrictRequire:
# This denies access when "SSLRequireSSL" or "SSLRequire" applied
even
# under a "Satisfy any" situation, i.e. when it applies access is
denied
# and no other module can change it.
# o OptRenegotiate:
# This enables optimized SSL connection renegotiation handling when
SSL
# directives are used in per-directory context.
#SSLOptions +FakeBasicAuth +ExportCertData +CompatEnvVars
+StrictRequire
<Files ~ "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php3?)$">
SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
</Files>
<Directory "/var/www/cgi-bin">
SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
</Directory>

# SSL Protocol Adjustments:
# The safe and default but still SSL/TLS standard compliant shutdown
# approach is that mod_ssl sends the close notify alert but doesn't
wait for
# the close notify alert from client. When you need a different
shutdown
# approach you can use one of the following variables:
# o ssl-unclean-shutdown:
# This forces an unclean shutdown when the connection is closed,
i.e. no
# SSL close notify alert is send or allowed to received. This
violates
# the SSL/TLS standard but is needed for some brain-dead browsers.
Use
# this when you receive I/O errors because of the standard approach
where
# mod_ssl sends the close notify alert.
# o ssl-accurate-shutdown:
# This forces an accurate shutdown when the connection is closed,
i.e. a
# SSL close notify alert is send and mod_ssl waits for the close
notify
# alert of the client. This is 100% SSL/TLS standard compliant, but
in
# practice often causes hanging connections with brain-dead
browsers. Use
# this only for browsers where you know that their SSL
implementation
# works correctly.
# Notice: Most problems of broken clients are also related to the
HTTP
# keep-alive facility, so you usually additionally want to disable
# keep-alive for those clients, too. Use variable "nokeepalive" for
this.
# Similarly, one has to force some clients to use HTTP/1.0 to
workaround
# their broken HTTP/1.1 implementation. Use variables "downgrade-1.0"
and
# "force-response-1.0" for this.
SetEnvIf User-Agent ".*MSIE.*" \
nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \
downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0

# Per-Server Logging:
# The home of a custom SSL log file. Use this when you want a
# compact non-error SSL logfile on a virtual host basis.
CustomLog logs/ssl_request_log \
"%t %h %{SSL_PROTOCOL}x %{SSL_CIPHER}x \"%r\" %b"

DocumentRoot /var/www/html/renegade-online.co.uk
<Directory "/var/www/html/renegade-online.co.uk/badmin">
AuthName "badmin-shop"
AuthType Basic
require valid-user
Satisfy all
AuthUserFile /var/auth/access-nu
</Directory>



If anyone can tell whats wrong i'd apprecciate it greatly....


Also, re. the iptables.... do i need anything in my forward chain? its
empty at the moment... outward chain is set to allow related,
established packets only....


many thanks for your time....


brian

ps. this is the output from httpd -S

VirtualHost configuration:
84.234.17.186:80 is a NameVirtualHost
default server www.renegade-online.co.uk
(/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:1033)
port 80 namevhost www.renegade-online.co.uk
(/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:1033)
port 80 namevhost www.reducelandfill.org
(/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:1052)
port 80 namevhost www.edinburgh-audiovisual.co.uk
(/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:1064)
port 80 namevhost www.thevenuedumfries.co.uk
(/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:1075)
wildcard NameVirtualHosts and _default_ servers:
_default_:443 www.renegade-online.co.uk
(/etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf:88)
Syntax OK

dj.brainstorm@gmail.com wrote:
> ps. this is the output from httpd -S
>
> VirtualHost configuration:
> 84.234.17.186:80 is a NameVirtualHost
> default server www.renegade-online.co.uk
> (/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:1033)
> port 80 namevhost www.renegade-online.co.uk
> (/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:1033)
> port 80 namevhost www.reducelandfill.org
> (/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:1052)
> port 80 namevhost www.edinburgh-audiovisual.co.uk
> (/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:1064)
> port 80 namevhost www.thevenuedumfries.co.uk
> (/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:1075)
> wildcard NameVirtualHosts and _default_ servers:
> _default_:443 www.renegade-online.co.uk
> (/etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf:88)
> Syntax OK

one thing i do notice quickly is that you have no
Order Allow, Deny
atatement before your
allow from all statements within the directory blocks.
I would have thought you need them and while apache is starting who
knows what that will end up doing.

fix things like that and other things start behaving differently in my
experience.

of course you could have
Order Deny, Allow
as well, but either will work providing in the former you have an Allow
from all afterwards.

thanks... will amend that... if you notice anything else then please
let me know... if its not obviously apache then it may be a hardware
problemi suppose....