I did a search but I find a lot of programs posted here. I'm not looking for much details because I'm not a programmer.

Can someone tell me why a segmentation fault from a program causes the Linux O/S to hang and require a reboot?

I am running mostly RHEL 4 update 5

I thought that a segmentation fault triggered was supposed to kill / terminate the program.

Here is the /var/log/messages:

[root@test51 ~]# grep fault /var/log/messages.1
Jan 5 07:23:02 test51 kernel: vcselab[5223]: segfault at 0000000000000000 rip 00000000080ad540 rsp 00000000ffffb900 error 4
Jan 5 07:26:02 test51 kernel: vcselab[6642]: segfault at 0000000000000000 rip 00000000080ad540 rsp 00000000ffffb900 error 4
Jan 5 21:18:06 test51 kernel: hsp-vacomp[7300]: segfault at 0000000000000046 rip 00000000f7e9b2a3 rsp 00000000ffff8628 error 4
Jan 6 20:48:57 test51 kernel: cgmop1[6348]: segfault at 00000000fa9c3790 rip 000000000808c532 rsp 00000000ffffbe90 error 4
Jan 7 18:00:12 test51 kernel: svdoc[2651]: segfault at 0000000000000010 rip 0000000000428311 rsp 0000007fbfffe1d0 error 4
Jan 7 18:00:15 test51 kernel: svdoc[2719]: segfault at 0000000000000010 rip 0000000000428311 rsp 0000007fbfffe1d0 error 4

Thanks!!!

Could be bad memory based on how that looks.

usually it does, but in your case it's the kernel that's segfaulting ...
I'll take rweaver's word for why it's doing that.

that's possible, try running memtest86 to be sure.

It could also be a kernel bug, is there an update for the kernel ?

Thank you rweaver, chrism01, H_TeXMeX_H

The kernel version from "uname -r" is 2.6.9-67.ELsmp

I see some more seg faults today, but it's from vcs1 program. The machine is still up and running.

I guess I'll start with a memory test first. Then update the kernel if required.