I used to think Linux doesn't crash...

[jkersenbr]

My LAN file/print server crashed today. Linux Mandrake 7.1. No GUI loaded. No hardware failure, just crash. Didn't even respond to keyboard -- had to hit Reset. And it was only working on 6 days uptime. (I've had it go 60+ before. This was it's first crash.)

Here's the applicable log (the first and last lines were repeated at least 500 times):
-------------
Nov 12 04:08:17 server syslogd 1.3-3: restart.
Nov 12 04:08:45 server texpire[435]: Removing stale lockfile: pid 22832
Nov 12 04:08:45 server texpire[435]: can't stat /var/spool/news/leaf.node/groupinfo: No such file or directory
Nov 12 04:22:01 server anacron[494]: Updated timestamp for job `cron.weekly' to 2000-11-12
Nov 12 13:22:41 server init: PANIC: segmentation violation at 0x400aceca! sleeping for 30 seconds.
Nov 12 13:23:41 server last message repeated 2 times
Nov 12 13:25:11 server last message repeated 3 times
-------------

Any ideas on this? I am planning to disable the News -- don't need it/it's just running by Mandrake's default.

Thanks for any info.
Jeremy

 

[StuckMojo]

seems like you're on the right track. news must be misconfigured somehow.

if you want stability, its a good idea to turn off everything you're not using (this rule also applies to security...if you want a secure machine...do the same). that way, anything you're running you have actually configured by hand, and know its set up the way you want.

ppl have gotten this idea that linux is crash proof or something, which isnt true at all. if its misconfigured, you can get kernel panics every day.

 

[StuckMojo]

if its of any use to you, i would make the following guesses from that log file.

i would guess that "texpire" is the process that expires old news articles and removes them. its dying an ugly death, but keeps getting restarted.

not surprising that it eventually kills the box, as the "segementation violation" is a programatic memory error. something doing something illegal with memory, over and over, and it eventually brings down the box.

BTW these are guesses, as im not familiar with mandrake.

 

[jkersenbr]

The only reason I haven't already turned off all unnecessary services is because I'm not worried about security.

My print server is visible only to my LAN. The only thing on my LAN visible to the Internet is my router. It would seem to me that it would be nearly impossible (and quite unrewarding, I might add) to hack my server.

Thanks.