Wade Preston Shearer wrote: > My server goes down from time to time. When it does, it is still on > but none of the services respond (no response from SSH, Apache, ping, > etc). The server is just a web server. Each time, I reboot it and it > comes back up just fine. I'm trying to figure out what keeps taking > it down. I've wondered if it was a bad hard drive in the RAID, but > after looking at the Apache logs just now and seeing a plethora of > memory leak notices, I'm wondering if it's a memory issue. Would a > bad script that is leaking memory cause the machine to run out of > memory and then freeze up or cause all of the services to become > non-responsive?
No. A program that simply eats memory can cause thrashing and activate the kernel's OOM killer, but it can't kill the network stack unless there's also a kernel or hardware bug. I used to have a home server that got into a zombie state like that about once a month. It never gave me enough info to diagnose the problem, even on virtual consoles. I finally replaced the hardware with the least expensive server-class components I could find: a Tyan board, a low power Opteron, ECC RAM, and an Enermax PSU. I've had the new hardware for about 2 years now and the problem has not occurred at all. The old hardware is now inside a desktop Ubuntu box. The owner is quite happy with it. She doesn't leave it on 24/7, and that makes all the difference. :-) Shane /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
