Importance of CDN Troubleshooting
As the traffic entry point for websites and applications, CDN failures directly affect user experience and business availability. Mastering CDN troubleshooting methods and techniques enables quick identification and resolution of issues, minimizing failure impact.
Common CDN Failure Types
1. Access Failures
Symptoms:
- Users cannot access website
- Returns 5xx errors
- Connection timeout
Possible causes:
- CDN node failure
- DNS resolution issues
- Origin server failure
- Network connection issues
2. Performance Degradation
Symptoms:
- Slow response time
- Frequent buffering (video)
- Extended loading time
Possible causes:
- Low cache hit rate
- Network congestion
- High origin server load
- CDN node overload
3. Content Inconsistency
Symptoms:
- Users see old content
- Different regions see different content
- Updates not taking effect
Possible causes:
- Cache not refreshed
- TTL set too long
- Incorrect cache key configuration
- Inconsistent multi-CDN configuration
4. Security Issues
Symptoms:
- DDoS attacks
- Malicious crawler access
- Data leakage
Possible causes:
- Improper security configuration
- Insufficient protection strategies
- Unpatched vulnerabilities
Troubleshooting Process
1. Confirm Failure Scope
Check steps:
1. Confirm user scope
bash# Check if many users are reporting # View monitoring data # Analyze error logs
2. Confirm geographic scope
bash# Check if specific regions are affected # Use geographic location tools # Analyze access logs
3. Confirm time scope
bash# Check when failure started # View time series data # Compare with historical data
2. Check CDN Status
Check items:
1. CDN node status
bash# Check node health status curl -I https://cdn.example.com/health # Check multiple nodes for node in node1 node2 node3; do curl -I https://$node.example.com/health done
2. CDN console
- View node status
- Check alert information
- Analyze traffic charts
3. CDN API
javascript// Use CDN API to check status const response = await fetch('https://api.cdn.com/status', { headers: { 'Authorization': 'Bearer {api_token}' } }) const status = await response.json() console.log(status)
3. Check DNS Resolution
Check steps:
1. Check DNS resolution
bash# Check domain resolution dig example.com # Check specific DNS server dig @8.8.8.8 example.com # Check CNAME record dig CNAME cdn.example.com
2. Check DNS propagation
bash# Check multiple DNS servers for dns in 8.8.8.8 1.1.1.1 114.114.114.114; do echo "DNS: $dns" dig @$dns example.com done
3. Check DNS cache
bash# Clear local DNS cache # macOS sudo dscacheutil -flushcache sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder # Linux sudo systemctl restart nscd
4. Check Network Connection
Check steps:
1. Check network latency
bash# Ping test ping cdn.example.com # Traceroute test traceroute cdn.example.com # MTR test (combines ping and traceroute) mtr cdn.example.com
2. Check port connection
bash# Check HTTP port telnet cdn.example.com 80 # Check HTTPS port telnet cdn.example.com 443 # Use nc to test nc -zv cdn.example.com 443
3. Check SSL/TLS
bash# Check SSL certificate openssl s_client -connect cdn.example.com:443 -servername cdn.example.com # Check SSL certificate validity echo | openssl s_client -connect cdn.example.com:443 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 -noout -dates
5. Check Cache Status
Check steps:
1. Check cache hit rate
bash# Analyze access logs grep "HIT" access.log | wc -l grep "MISS" access.log | wc -l # Calculate cache hit rate hit_count=$(grep "HIT" access.log | wc -l) total_count=$(wc -l < access.log) hit_rate=$((hit_count * 100 / total_count)) echo "Cache hit rate: $hit_rate%"
2. Check cache keys
bash# Check cache key configuration nginx -T | grep proxy_cache_key # Analyze cache key differences grep "cache_key" access.log | sort | uniq -c
3. Check cache expiration
bash# Check cache TTL curl -I https://cdn.example.com/file.jpg | grep -i cache-control # Check cache expiration time curl -I https://cdn.example.com/file.jpg | grep -i expires
6. Check Origin Server Status
Check steps:
1. Direct access to origin
bash# Direct access to origin for testing curl -I https://origin.example.com/file.jpg # Check origin response time time curl https://origin.example.com/file.jpg
2. Check origin load
bash# Check CPU usage top # Check memory usage free -h # Check disk usage df -h # Check network connections netstat -an | grep ESTABLISHED | wc -l
3. Check origin logs
bash# Check error logs tail -f /var/log/nginx/error.log # Check access logs tail -f /var/log/nginx/access.log # Check slow queries tail -f /var/log/mysql/slow.log
Common Troubleshooting Tools
1. Network Diagnostic Tools
Ping
bash# Basic usage ping cdn.example.com # Specify count ping -c 10 cdn.example.com # Specify packet size ping -s 1024 cdn.example.com
Traceroute
bash# Basic usage traceroute cdn.example.com # Use ICMP traceroute -I cdn.example.com # Specify port traceroute -p 443 cdn.example.com
MTR
bash# Basic usage mtr cdn.example.com # Specify report mode mtr -r -c 10 cdn.example.com # Save to file mtr -r -c 10 cdn.example.com > mtr_report.txt
2. HTTP Debugging Tools
Curl
bash# Basic request curl https://cdn.example.com/file.jpg # View response headers curl -I https://cdn.example.com/file.jpg # View detailed information curl -v https://cdn.example.com/file.jpg # View request and response headers curl -i https://cdn.example.com/file.jpg # Specify request headers curl -H "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0" https://cdn.example.com/file.jpg # View response time curl -w "@curl-format.txt" -o /dev/null -s https://cdn.example.com/file.jpg
curl-format.txt:
shelltime_namelookup: %{time_namelookup}\n time_connect: %{time_connect}\n time_appconnect: %{time_appconnect}\n time_pretransfer: %{time_pretransfer}\n time_redirect: %{time_redirect}\n time_starttransfer: %{time_starttransfer}\n ----------\n time_total: %{time_total}\n
Wget
bash# Basic download wget https://cdn.example.com/file.jpg # View detailed information wget -d https://cdn.example.com/file.jpg # Save response headers wget -S https://cdn.example.com/file.jpg # Specify timeout wget -T 10 https://cdn.example.com/file.jpg
3. Browser Developer Tools
Network Panel
View request details:
- Request URL
- Request method
- Request headers
- Response headers
- Response time
- Status code
View waterfall chart:
- Request timeline
- Wait time
- Download time
- Total time
Console Panel
View error messages:
- JavaScript errors
- Network errors
- Resource loading errors
4. Log Analysis Tools
ELK Stack
Elasticsearch query:
json// Query specific errors { "query": { "match": { "status": 502 } } } // Query specific time range { "query": { "range": { "@timestamp": { "gte": "2026-02-19T00:00:00", "lte": "2026-02-19T23:59:59" } } } }
Kibana visualization:
- Request volume trend chart
- Error rate distribution chart
- Response time distribution chart
AWStats
Analyze access logs:
bash# Generate report awstats.pl -config=cdn -update # View report awstats.pl -config=cdn -output
Troubleshooting Cases
Case 1: Slow Website Access
Problem description: Users report slow website loading
Troubleshooting steps:
1. Check CDN nodes
bash# Ping test ping cdn.example.com # Check response time curl -w "@curl-format.txt" -o /dev/null -s https://cdn.example.com/
2. Check cache hit rate
bash# Analyze access logs grep "MISS" access.log | wc -l
3. Check origin
bash# Direct access to origin curl -w "@curl-format.txt" -o /dev/null -s https://origin.example.com/
4. Solutions:
- Improve cache hit rate
- Optimize origin performance
- Add CDN nodes
Case 2: Content Update Not Taking Effect
Problem description: After updating content, users still see old content
Troubleshooting steps:
1. Check cache TTL
bash# Check cache control headers curl -I https://cdn.example.com/file.jpg | grep -i cache-control
2. Check cache keys
bash# Check cache key configuration nginx -T | grep proxy_cache_key
3. Check cache status
bash# Check if cache is hit curl -I https://cdn.example.com/file.jpg | grep -i x-cache
4. Solutions:
- Refresh CDN cache
- Use versioning
- Adjust TTL settings
Case 3: HTTPS Certificate Error
Problem description: Browser shows certificate error
Troubleshooting steps:
1. Check SSL certificate
bash# Check certificate information openssl s_client -connect cdn.example.com:443 -servername cdn.example.com # Check certificate validity echo | openssl s_client -connect cdn.example.com:443 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 -noout -dates
2. Check certificate chain
bash# Check certificate chain integrity openssl s_client -connect cdn.example.com:443 -showcerts
3. Solutions:
- Update SSL certificate
- Configure complete certificate chain
- Check certificate configuration
Failure Prevention Measures
1. Monitoring and Alerting
Key metrics:
- Node availability
- Response time
- Error rate
- Cache hit rate
Alert configuration:
yaml# Prometheus alert rules groups: - name: cdn_alerts rules: - alert: HighErrorRate expr: cdn_errors_total / cdn_requests_total * 100 > 1 for: 5m labels: severity: critical annotations: summary: "High error rate detected"
2. Health Checks
Regular checks:
bash# Health check script #!/bin/bash while true; do status=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" https://cdn.example.com/health) if [ $status -ne 200 ]; then echo "Health check failed: $status" # Send alert fi sleep 60 done
3. Backup and Disaster Recovery
Backup strategy:
- Regularly backup configurations
- Backup SSL certificates
- Backup DNS records
Disaster recovery plan:
- Multi-CDN strategy
- Origin redundancy
- Automatic failover
Interview Points
When answering this question, emphasize:
- Mastery of systematic troubleshooting process
- Proficiency in using various troubleshooting tools
- Practical troubleshooting experience
- Ability to quickly identify and resolve issues
- Awareness of failure prevention and disaster recovery