what does crash indicate in "last" output

[skt_skt]

# last|grep crash
madhum pts/0 noaadc-tms11.noa Fri Nov 2 09:15 - crash (02:32)
oracle pts/0 adq-c6ce8435.noa Sun Apr 8 16:23 - crash (05:37)
klasmlk pts/3 adedd05p.ami.alc Fri Jan 26 08:34 - crash (02:54)
klasmlk pts/0 adedd05p.ami.alc Fri Jan 26 08:33 - crash (02:55)

root@adela106p madhum]# hostname
adela106p
[root@adela106p madhum]# uname -a
Linux adela106p 2.4.21-47.ELsmp #1 SMP Wed Jul 5 20:38:41 EDT 2006 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
[root@adela106p madhum]# cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 3 (Taroon Update 8)

Looking at the below ouput, it sounds like the server due to some action from this account.. Could an one explain better?
#last reboot
reboot system boot 2.4.21-47.ELsmp Fri Nov 2 11:47 (01:17)
reboot system boot 2.4.21-47.ELsmp Sun May 13 01:38 (173+11:26)
reboot system boot 2.4.21-47.ELsmp Sun May 13 01:19 (00:15)
reboot system boot 2.4.21-27.ELsmp Sun Apr 8 22:01 (34+03:15)
reboot system boot 2.4.21-27.ELsmp Sun Mar 25 03:38 (48+21:37)
reboot system boot 2.4.21-27.ELsmp Sun Mar 25 02:35 (00:41)
reboot system boot 2.4.21-27.ELsmp Sun Mar 25 02:01 (00:14)
reboot system boot 2.4.21-27.ELsmp Fri Jan 26 14:44 (57+08:46)
reboot system boot 2.4.21-27.ELsmp Fri Jan 26 14:40 (57+08:50)
reboot system boot 2.4.21-27.ELsmp Fri Jan 26 14:36 (57+08:54)
reboot system boot 2.4.21-27.ELhuge Fri Jan 26 14:30 (57+08:59)
reboot system boot 2.4.21-27.ELsmp Fri Jan 26 14:20 (57+09:10)
reboot system boot 2.4.21-27.ELsmp Fri Jan 26 13:20 (57+10:10)
reboot system boot 2.4.21-27.ELsmp Fri Jan 26 11:29 (57+12:01)
reboot system boot 2.4.21-27.ELsmp Sun Jan 21 00:30 (62+22:59)
reboot system boot 2.4.21-27.ELhuge Tue Dec 26 18:06 (25+06:21)

[Rob Leadbeater · Accepted solution]

Hi,

The second time in the output of last, is the time that the user logged off. Where that time is the word crash, that would indicate that the machine went down uncleanly, for some reason.

If the machine were rebooted cleanly, then I'd expect to see the word reboot in the last output, rather than the word crash.

I don't think there's anything in the output posted that indicates that a specific user caused the crash/reboot... I would probably have a trawl through the output of dmesg and/or /var/log/messages to see if there's anything obvious to say what happened...

Hope this helps,

Regards,

Rob

[skt_skt]

Nov 2 11:42:51 adela106p kernel: Uhhuh. NMI received for unknown reason 35 on CPU 0.
Nov 2 11:42:51 adela106p kernel: Dazed and confused, but trying to continue
Nov 2 11:42:51 adela106p kernel: Do you have a strange power saving mode enabled?
Nov 2 11:48:00 adela106p syslogd 1.4.1: restart.
Nov 2 11:48:00 adela106p syslog: syslogd startup succeeded

[Stuart Browne]

Is this HP hardware running the PSP?

If so, what's the output of 'hplog -v' say?

[skt_skt]

it is an IBM xSeries 346...

[TY 007]

Hello Santosh,

Do consider following Newer Kernel(s) Update:
- 2.4.21-52.ELsmp
- 2.4.21-51.ELsmp
- 2.4.21-50.ELsmp
- 2.4.21-47.0.1.ELsmp

Thanks

[skt_skt]

it was a defective PCI card the root cause of the problem ,from the DSA logs.