[Wylug-discuss] System Crash

[Chris Brown]

On 06/07/07, Mark P. Conmy <mpc at comp.leeds.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, 6 Jul 2007, Chris Brown wrote:
> > On 06/07/07, Jim Jackson <jj at franjam.org.uk> wrote:
> >> On Fri, 6 Jul 2007, Chris Brown wrote:
> >>
> >> > Hi Mark,
> >> >
> >> > On 06/07/07, Mark Spink <dmspink at aria.uklinux.net> wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > Hi
> >> > >
> >> > > I have a co-location server thats has been running without a
> problem
> >> > > for over 3 years. This morning we had our first problem in ages, we
> >> > > could not connect to the web server or ssh, however we could still
> >> > > ping the server. Diagnostics is not my main area of expertise and
> if
> >> > > anyone could tell me where or how-to diagnose what happened I'd be
> >> > > grateful, perhaps even a few pints grateful!
> >> >
> >> > Sorry to hear of your issues. So networking is still up but ssh and
> web
> >> > server are not responding.
> >>
> >> Being able to ping is not a great diagnostic. I've seen servers where
> >> nothing userland was working but still responded to pings - ICMP is a
> >> kernel function.
> >
> > Do you have any alternative suggestions? Mark admitted he is not a great
> > diagnostician. He has asked for help, not criticism.
> >
> >> > Can you browse to the web server by ip address or login to ssh via
> >> > ip as opposed to domain?
> >>
> >> errr.... the problem's with his server, not his client.
> >
> > How do you know that? You are making assumptions based on very little
> > information. I would respectfully ask that you - and anyone else
> > responding to this thread in the future - assist Mark or not respond
> > at all.
>
> Chris,
>
> Take a deep breath and read it again imagining the response being sent
> by someone with a sympathetic look on their face.  I suspect Jim wasn't
> criticising (I didn't read it that way) but simply explaining that
> little can be divined through the presence (or, these days, absence) of
> ping (specified by the ICMP protocol) responses.
>
> As to the problem itself, there is (sadly) little that can be done
> remotely unless there is a way to get to the console (IPMI*, IP-enabled
> KVM or similar) or the userland services start playing ball again.
>
> In my experience, however, this is likely to be a fatal oops and require
> a reboot.  It may or may not be hardware inspired, but there really
> isn't enough information to know based on what's been said so far.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mark
>
> * IPMI isn't likely to be an option given the vintage - it existed, but
>    it was an early version that wasn't often configured.
>
>
We obviously interpreted the response in different ways. I for one got a bit
annoyed with the:

"Ping is pretty useless and your suggestion is nonsense".

and certainly a lack of any positive suggestive input. The original email
contained little information and my reply was intended to elicit more detail
which _is_ important in troubleshooting.

Regards
Chris

-- 
http://www.chruz.com
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