[nycbug-talk] Random Box Reboots

[Hans Zaunere]

On Wednesday, July 27, 2005 1:02 PM, talk-bounces at lists.nycbug.org wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 27, 2005 at 12:48:34PM -0400, Charles Sprickman wrote:
> > On Wed, 27 Jul 2005, Hans Zaunere wrote:
> > 
> > > I'm stuck on what could be causing this and how to troubleshoot it;
the
> > > box has only mild load.  Any thoughts appreciated.
> > 
> > Just in case, I'd enable coredumps, maybe you'll get "lucky" and have
> > something to look at: 
> > 
> > dumpdev="/dev/ad0s1b" in rc.conf (adjust to your swap partition)
> > 
> > Also make sure you've built a kernel with debug symbols:
> > 
> > makeoptions     DEBUG=-g        in kernel config
> > 
> > Lastly, for problematic hosts in the past I've put together a quick
shell
> > script that runs a whole mess of stuff; a full ps, vmstat, netstat, etc.
> > and writes it to a logfile.  I call it out of cron every five minutes.
> > That way if something does happen and there's no coredump I can see if
> > anything odd was happening before the crash.
> > 
> 
> I'd also advise you to stop using GENERIC on a production server.
> Strip down the kernel to the bare minimum and make better use of
> modules.  This could be hardware related.. but if it hums along for
> multiple months I'd be surprised at that.

Yeah, I was thinking about changing the kernel - but with such small load,
and stability for months without a problem - it seems that a kernel change
would be too big.  But, could be it I suppose.

> You aren't using nullfs anywhere are you?

Yes, but only in read-only mode - why?  I know there are a number of
stability issues, but in read-only, it should be better...

H