Location of log files to check shutdown times?
 

Guys,
What are the best places to look for log files regarding an issue one of my users has...
He claims that his RHEL 6.2 machine shuts down a couple of times a day. We have looked for clues in /var/log/messages but we're not sure what the issue is. I wanted to troubleshoot a bit more before we give him a new drive, and while I'm running diagnostics on the Dell box.

TIA

Do you have Dell OSM installed? The esmlogs should report any hardware failures to you.

Try:

If you don't have it installed you can read over http://www.dell.com/downloads/global...Senthil-OE.pdf on how to get it installed. Besides your messages file the Linux OS is more than likely not going to be reporting anything about the crash, if your messages file does not have a kernel panic or other info that indicates what the cause is it's usually hardware.

Also, I am assuming you have confirmed your clients claims that the server is shutting down by checking the uptime right?

We did check the uptime and it does show its been up for an hour and 43 mins. Looked thru /var/log/messages at that time and didn't really see anything that stood out to us Windows guys.

Forgot to add, this is a workstation, not a server.

thanks!

Oh well, open manage won't be available to you on a workstation. So what is reporting at the time of the shutdown in your messages file?