Crash diagnostics help

[Andy Whitcroft]

On Thu, Feb 04, 2010 at 09:38:43AM -0500, Hal Burgiss wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I am reporting this here, since I am not real sure what package to file this
> against. Presumably this is a kernel problem, but it has some curious aspects
> to it and thought I might try to get advice about where to go next.
> 
> Quick Summary: server crash
> Current Hardware: Dell PowerEdge 2650
> Platform: 8.04 (updated)
> Kernel: Linux www 2.6.24-26-server #1 SMP Tue Dec 1 19:19:20 UTC 2009 i686
> GNU/Linux
> Profile: Web server with vhosted clients, and basic LAMP functionality.
> Typical load: less than .20, rarely above .50
> 
> Symptom summary: System fails to fully respond. System is running, and
> answers pings quite normally, but ALL servers fail to respond (apache, sshd,
> etc), requiring a reboot to restore "normal" functionaltiy.

The drop to near zero functionality does sound like it could be a kernel
issue.  Normally when such things cannot even be logged to disk you
might hope to find some kernel notification on the real console, for
tricky situations like this a serial console is often a good bet.

-apw