Problems with Linux on Opteron ProLiant-Server

[Jürgen Haug_1]

We have problems with ProLiant-Servers rebooting every 4 to 6 weeks. There are several DL585-G5 installed and ALL of them do that (but not all at exactly the same time, just every few weeks they decide to reboot). They're running Linux.

HP can't help, it's at the second level support and they have no clue.

I just wonder if anyone out there has heard of this odd behaviour?

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

This is not normal behavior, nor is it acceptable.

All G5 servers have a built in ROM based utility for testing hardware. I would boot this system into that mode and run a complete and thorough hardware check.

Taking a look at the log /var/log/messages after a failure may give you a clue to what is going on.

What I suspect based on experience:
* Power supply problem
* Problem with the memory

The latter problem will definitely show up in messages file prior to a failure.

SEP

[Ivan Krastev]

What is the linux version - check for pathes and updates. Check also if you had PSP installed for the latest version.

regards,
ivan

[Ragu_3]

>> They're running Linux

Which GNU/Linux? Redhat or CentOS or Debian?
Which port of GNU/Linux? Install and make sure that you run the x86_64 port of Redhat/CentOS or the amd64 port of Debian.
Linux is the kernel, which version?

[Brendan Peter Murphy]

Hi Jurgen,
It would help to have more information!
What Linux Version/Patch level
What software running on these systems
What Proloant Support Pack Version installed
etc

Anyway .. first off, I would recommend ensuring that you have the latest firmware installed on your systems, then upgrade to latest version of PSP.

If the systems are just rebooting without generating crash dumps then I suspect your problem is with the built-in ASR facility. ASR (Automatic Server Recovery) is a feature that causes the system to restart when a catastrophic operating system error occurs, such as a blue screen, ABEND, or panic. A system fail-safe timer, the ASR timer, starts when the System Management driver, also known as the Health Driver, is loaded. When the operating system is functioning properly, the system periodically resets the timer. However, when the operating system fails, the timer expires and restarts the server. The objective of using ASR is to increase server availability by restarting the server within a specified time after a system hang or failure.

The quickest way to discover if the issue is with ASR is to either set the ASR timeout really high or to just disable ASR. This can be done through the RBSU. While Server booting, enter RBSU using F9 key, then select "Server Availability", then select ASR Status to toggle ASR enabled/disabled. Alternatively select ASR Timeout & increase the timeout value to 30 minutes.

If the problem is with ASR, then the system will continue to function as expected.

If not, then the system will either hang or crash, in which case you'll need to gather crash dump info & forward it through your support channels.

Regards,

Brendan

[Jürgen Haug_1]

Wow, I didn't expect such quick response :-)

I will try to get the people actually involved in the case post some more information on here.

Thanks!

regards,
Jürgen

[Ragu_3]

>> Wow, I didn't expect such quick response

And have you marked up points for the posts that you got and found useful?

[Nicolas Petznick]

Hello,

we have installed the latest firmware and the latest PSP, available at the time we opened the call.

We don't expect the problem from the ASR!
We disabled the ASR in the Server-Homepage and the server is still freezing from time to time.
The only change is that the machine is not doing an reboot.

Actually we are using SLES 9 SP3. Do you think that upgrading to SLES 10 SP2 would solve the problem from freezing?

Regards,
Nicolas Petznick

TWK