[TriLUG] help understanding /var/log/messages

[Geoff Purdy]

> I don't know what's causing your crashes, but it's generally 
> considered a
> BAD IDEA (tm) to run X on the console of a network server.  

Thanks.  I'd begun to reach a similar conclusion myself.  Is there a
specific reason *why* this is bad or is X just too flaky to run on a
high-availability server? 

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeremy P [mailto:jeremyp at pobox.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 5:29 PM
> To: 'trilug at trilug.org'
> Subject: Re: [TriLUG] help understanding /var/log/messages
> 
> 
> On Wed, 16 Jan 2002, Geoff Purdy wrote:
> 
> > I've got a Dell PowerEdge 2450 server running RHL7.1 which 
> has suddenly (as
> > of today) started locking up.  The server will be running 
> normally, then
> > without warning ssh connections to it will freeze and as 
> does X display on
> > the box itself.  Strangely, it will respond to pings, but 
> not HTTP requests,
> > ssh, ftp, nfs, or any other service I have running.
> 
> I've heard that locked/hung box will sometimes respond to 
> ping but nothing
> else because some Ethernet cards implment the ICMP Echo 
> Request (ping) on
> the card itself.  I think this depends on the card and 
> driver; sometimes
> ping is handled by the Linux kernel.
>  
> > The box will restart if power-cycled (yuck) but 
> subsequently locks up again.
> > I suspect it may be related to the mouse driver / KVM 
> switch as this has
> > caused annoyances (but not crashes) in the past.  My 
> temporary fix has been
> > to set the server to boot into runlevel 3 (w/ networking 
> but w/o X) and it's
> > running OK now.
> 
> I don't know what's causing your crashes, but it's generally 
> considered a
> BAD IDEA (tm) to run X on the console of a network server.  
> If you want to
> use X applications (such as Red Hat configuration tools, 
> etc), you should
> ssh into the box from somewhere else.  As long as you have X 
> forwarding
> enabled in ssh, and you use "su" to switch to root (not "su -") you
> shouldn't have any trouble getting X apps to automatically 
> display on your
> workstation.
> 
> Regards,
> Jeremy
> 
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