From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon May 22 15:57:01 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C33DB16A9D7 for ; Mon, 22 May 2006 15:57:01 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bsr@spek.org) Received: from sccrmhc12.comcast.net (sccrmhc12.comcast.net [63.240.77.82]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ED69D43D7F for ; Mon, 22 May 2006 15:56:56 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from bsr@spek.org) Received: from spek.dyndns.org ([24.21.204.165]) by comcast.net (sccrmhc12) with ESMTP id <20060522155655012005b2lae>; Mon, 22 May 2006 15:56:55 +0000 Received: from [127.0.0.1] (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by spek.dyndns.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3D93780C0B2 for ; Mon, 22 May 2006 08:56:55 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4471DF47.8060500@spek.org> Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 08:56:55 -0700 From: Brent Rieck User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.8 (X11/20060502) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: system freezes. X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 15:57:05 -0000 Hello, I've been having some freeze problems with my "managed" freebsd server that my host has been less than helpful with; I hope that this is the right place to ask the questions I have. os: freebsd 4.8-stable major applications: apache 1.3.29 + php 4.3.10 , mysql 4.1.18-log, dirvish, riff-backup Machine freezes with nothing written to the logs or console - if you happen to be logged in and running top when it "starts" to freeze your top session will run completely normally and without lag (spacebar refreshes display, you can resort on size or cpu, etc), but no other processes can start - typing a command into another open shell will not start that program. Until it fully freezes it will echo characters back in the shell - and top will continue to run as normal. Top always shows a load of <0.1, there's always 5MB to 50MB of ram free. All of the hardware has been replaced (motherboard, cpu, ram, power supply, hard drive) I can't make it freeze on demand by replaying the web hits or database queries that occurred before the crash. I am able to make it freeze on demand by slurping down a particular dirvish vault with rsync. The freeze symptoms are the same as the random freeze symptoms (top responds normally, new processes can't start) The random freezes occur whether or not I'm running dirvish on a schedule. The rsync freezing I can work around if needed, the random freezes I cannot. Does anybody have any suggestions on how I might track down the problem? thanks, Brent