Server was down this morning

bbrian017 · 04-09-2010, 08:42 AM

My Dedicated Server was down this morning and I was hoping someone would be willing to help be find out why.

I have root su - access so if you tell me what you need I will post it.

Operating System: CentOS 5
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 - 3.0 GHz
RAM: 2 GB
Total Disk Space: 120 GB
RAID: None
Bandwidth Quota: 500 GB

Please and thanks,

Brian

MS3FGX · 04-09-2010, 09:03 AM

You couldn't connect at all, or just some services stopped working?

Have you asked your host if they know anything about it? That seems like the most obvious first move.

bbrian017 · 04-09-2010, 09:11 AM

I was able to login using SSH but all my websites were down.

Perhaps it was a mysql issue and not a server issue?

I did a reboot and my websites went back up.

I have not talked with my host they provide very limited support as this is a self managed dedicated server.

Operating System: CentOS 5
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 - 3.0 GHz
RAM: 2 GB
Total Disk Space: 120 GB
RAID: None
Bandwidth Quota: 500 GB

MS3FGX · 04-09-2010, 09:14 AM

So then the server itself was up, there was just some problem with Apache (which I will assume is your web server). Have you checked the Apache logs right before and during the downtime?

bbrian017 · 04-09-2010, 09:16 AM

No I haven't checked the apache logs.

Are they also in /var/log/

Thanks so much for the help.

TB0ne · 04-09-2010, 09:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bbrian017

No I haven't checked the apache logs.

Are they also in /var/log/

Thanks so much for the help.

They're wherever you set them up to be, but usually in /var/log/apache2. Have you checked uptime on the server?? Perhaps it got powered off.

bbrian017 · 04-09-2010, 09:29 AM

I don't see the apache2 in the log folder.

This is what I see.

Also how do I check the up time I think it has been reset since my reboot.

karlochacon · 04-09-2010, 10:25 AM

go to httpd folder and check the logs there

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/apache-logs/

also in /var/log you could check messages file

bbrian017 · 04-09-2010, 10:30 AM

Does anyone know how I can get a copy of that file so I can upload it here? It's so big I cannot highlight it all fdor some reason.

This was in my httpd folder.

MS3FGX · 04-09-2010, 12:23 PM

You don't need to post it all here, you just need to find the lines that tell you what the problem is/was.

Perhaps we need to step back a little here. What exactly is your skill level with Linux in general, and services like Apache? Figuring out what happened is not going to be as easy as running a command and it telling you exactly what is wrong, you will likely need to get your hands a little dirty.

bbrian017 · 04-09-2010, 12:42 PM

My Skill level is as low as they get. I simply had a popular website and needed a dedicated server to handle the traffic load.

I know basic commands but nothing that would help me determine what is wrong and why apache stopped running.

unSpawn · 04-09-2010, 03:47 PM

Install Logwatch. It's good for weeding out the noise and showing you the "interesting" parts of logs efficiently as a report. Anyone who runs any (Internet-facing) services should run Logwatch or equivalent. (Maybe patch Logwatch with this and then) run logwatch as 'logwatch --numeric --detail High --archives --range All --save /var/log/logwatch.report && bzip2 /var/log/logwatch.txt'. Then if all went OK you can copy /var/log/logwatch.txt.bz2 to your local system, decompress it and attach it to this thread.

jefro · 04-09-2010, 05:37 PM

Webmin may already be in it. It might be a usable tool for you.
http://www.webmin.com/index.html

unSpawn · 04-09-2010, 07:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefro

Webmin may already be in it. It might be a usable tool for you.

Forgive me my ignorance but what could it actually do to help him diagnose his problems?

nonamenobody · 04-10-2010, 06:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by unSpawn

Forgive me my ignorance but what could it actually do to help him diagnose his problems?

I suppose it might give him an 'easy' way to perform certain admin. activities - such as seeing what services are running and restart services which have failed for some reason, if it happens again. However, as he is renting a dedicated server, he probably already has cPanel or Plesk - which will overlap with Webmin and cause problems. And ofcourse, if his webserver (or services it depends on) is failing, Webmin might not be there when he needs it most.