Requesting large ranges in webdav results in poor performance

[dratini0]

I was trying to mount a webdav share with GVFS, and then play a 10G video, hoping it would work, and it didn't. Turns out it requested ranges from the file, which OC apparently does not like.

Steps to reproduce

1. Put a large file on an Owncloud server
2. Try to request a huge chunk of it using webdav and the HTTP range header. See below for an example.

Expected behaviour

The download should start immediately

Actual behaviour

Owncloud went ahead to create a temporary file equal in size to the requested range, which took about a minute (happens for local files and local shares)

Server configuration

Operating system:
Debian 7.8 amd64
Web server:
nginx 1.6.2-5~bpo70+1
Database:
MySQL 5.5.41-0+wheezy1
PHP version:
PHP 5.4.39-0+deb7u2
ownCloud version: (see ownCloud admin page)
ownCloud 8.0.2-8
Updated from an older ownCloud or fresh install:
Have been rolling since 6.x
List of activated apps:

• activity
• calendar
• contacts
• documents
• external
• files
• files_external
• files_pdfviewer
• files_sharing
• files_texteditor
• files_trashbin
• files_versions
• files_videoviewer
• gallery
• news
• notes

The content of config/config.php:

<?php
$CONFIG = array (
  'datadirectory' => '/home/oc_data',
  'dbtype' => 'mysql',
  'version' => '8.0.2.0',
  'dbname' => 'owncloud',
  'dbhost' => 'localhost',
  'dbtableprefix' => 'oc_',
  'installed' => true,
  'forcessl' => false,
  'loglevel' => '0',
  'log_authfailip' => true,
  'theme' => '',
  'maintenance' => false,
  'mail_smtpmode' => 'php',
  'overwrite.cli.url' => '/owncloud',
);

Are you using external storage, if yes which one: local

Are you using encryption: no

Are you using an external user-backend, if yes which one: none

Client configuration

Browser:
gvfs 1.22.2, netcat 1.105-7

Operating system:
Debian Jessie amd64

A request that jammed my owncloud: (the file is 10704943577 bytes long)

GET /owncloud/remote.php/webdav/10G-Movie.mkv HTTP/1.1
Host: ...
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Accept-Language: en-us, en;q=0.9, en;q=0.8
Connection: Keep-Alive
Range: bytes=40960-
User-Agent: gvfs/1.22.2
Authorization: Basic ...
Cookie: ...

P. s.: Sorry, I haven't had the opportunity to try in a newer install, but I haven't seen any discussion regarding the issue.

[dratini0]

I have found the culprit, it's in upstream sabredav: /lib/DAV/CorePlugin.php, line 178

Apparently it implements ranges by creating a temporary stream and blindly copying. I will attempt to submit a pull request there, and we will see how it goes.

[jospoortvliet]

#14383 might be helpful for this too.

[PVince81]

@dratini0 are you still seeing this in 8.1.4 or 8.2 which contain an updated Sabre version ?

Did I understand well that you are using external storage with the type "local" ? That one should be seekable, so not sure why the seekable check would return false here. The symptoms you see would usually only be observed on non seekable external storages.

[elvetemedve]

@PVince81 I've updated Owncloud to version 8.2.1, but CorePlugin.php still contains the temporary stream implementation. So the problem is still there.

[PVince81]

You mean https://github.com/owncloud/3rdparty/blob/stable8.2/sabre/dav/lib/DAV/CorePlugin.php#L177 ?

Yeah, strange. I'll report this upstream.

[PVince81]

Hmm, looks like in Sabre 3 (the next major version) they got rid of the temporary stream https://github.com/fruux/sabre-dav/blob/master/lib/DAV/CorePlugin.php#L175

Here is the ticket for upgrading to Sabre 3: #17039

@evert can you confirm that Sabre 3 will not buffer/copy the whole stream into a temp stream for range requests like Sabre 2 did ?

[evert]

It looks like that never made it into the changelog, but I fixed that now.

We did indeed improve this, in this PR:

https://github.com/fruux/sabre-dav/pull/623

Originally appeared in version 2.2.0-alpha4

[guruz]

Awesome to see this! :)

[evert]

Note that this was 100% by the OP of this ticket, @dratini0

[PVince81]

Cool. I see that the fix is available starting with 3.0: https://github.com/fruux/sabre-dav/blob/3.0/lib/DAV/CorePlugin.php#L180

[DeepDiver1975]

master is now on sabre 3.0 -> closing

[lock]

This thread has been automatically locked since there has not been any recent activity after it was closed. Please open a new issue for related bugs.