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Logging Unexpected Shutdowns/Crashes w/ Linux?
sweede asks: "I have a dedicated server that seems to reboot more often than it should. In Windows 2000/XP (maybe NT4.0?), if your computer or server crashes it will leave an event message in the Event Viewer for you to review on what went wrong. Is it possible to do something similar in Linux? Where a power outage or an unexpected kernel panic will leave a message in /var/log/event (or whatever) Searching Google for 'kernel trapping' doesn't give me a whole lot of info on the subject."
Its not enough if you're trying to determine whats throwing the system out to lunch.
Id be apt to turn on hangcheck with 1min restart + email on my servers. But better is to know what they failed by..
Too true. I knew about those options too, but if he wants logging, he can make a cheap logserver that archives these problems across the whole network.
If it's only 1 computer, I'd probably use a real terminal or a cheapie like your minix box or printer.
But it doesn't show stuff after the boot, which is what the author is looking for.
What's the reason that just about every other unix does write to the HD after panic?
Why do you trust a kernel that has got its knickers in a twist to be able to know where the swap partition is?
I'd be happier with it writing to a floppy, serial, or other isolated subsystem. The difference between your swap partition and your root directory structure might be just 0x10000 in one of the register values, and that's considered too close to be worth risking.
YAW.
Your head of state is a corrupt weasel, I hope you're happy.
I built the machine I am writing this on around 18 months ago. After a few months it became totally unstable (after a software upgrade to SuSE 8.0, I think). Now it runs SuSE 8.2 with absolutely no hardware changes and has not died on me for months.
Other people had no problems with that level.
The driver for the Realtek 8139 that came with the early 2.4 kernels used to kill the machine I first ran it on. Kill it stone dead, I had to hit reset to restart. The machine is dual-boot and worked fine under Win95. That problem was fixed in a kernel that came out in late 2001 (?) and that nic has always worked just fine in this machine since I built it, as did the old 3com card I replaced it with in the older machine..
Linux is not impervious to quality problems. No OS is.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.