What are the likely causes of reboots?

Paul Schmehl pauls at utdallas.edu
Mon Oct 10 08:54:02 PDT 2005


Since I only got one answer, I'm resending this in the hope that others 
will respond.

I maintain a small hobby website running on FreeBSD 5.4.  I'm pasting in 
the dmesg.boot at the end of this post so you can see the hardware.

In the past week, the server has rebooted three times, and I can't find any 
explanation for it in the logs.  I *suspect* these might be "mistakes" by 
the ISP's techs (or possibly the UPS isn't really working as it should), 
but I want to rule out other possible explanations before I talk to them.

What are the possible causes of spontaneous reboots?  And what artifacts 
would be left behind that might indicate the source of the problem?  Are 
there any utilities I can use to monitor the system and possibly discover 
the source of the problem?  Any special files or logs in unusual places 
that might give me a clue?

less /var/run/dmesg.boot
Copyright (c) 1992-2005 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
        The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
FreeBSD 5.4-SECURITY #0: Wed Jul 20 08:57:11 UTC 2005
    root at builder.daemonology.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC
ACPI APIC Table: <DELL   PE500SC >
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) III CPU family      1266MHz (1263.45-MHz 686-class 
CPU)
  Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0x6b1  Stepping = 1
 Features=0x383fbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,
CMOV,PAT,PSE36,MMX,FXSR,SSE>
real memory  = 1073676288 (1023 MB)
avail memory = 1041125376 (992 MB)
ioapic0: Changing APIC ID to 1
ioapic1: Changing APIC ID to 2
MADT: Forcing active-low polarity and level trigger for SCI
ioapic0 <Version 1.1> irqs 0-15 on motherboard
ioapic1 <Version 1.1> irqs 16-31 on motherboard
npx0: <math processor> on motherboard
npx0: INT 16 interface
acpi0: <DELL PE500SC> on motherboard
acpi0: Power Button (fixed)
Timecounter "ACPI-safe" frequency 3579545 Hz quality 1000
acpi_timer0: <32-bit timer at 3.579545MHz> port 0x808-0x80b on acpi0
cpu0: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0
pcib0: <ACPI Host-PCI bridge> on acpi0
pci0: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib0
fxp0: <Intel 82559 Pro/100 Ethernet> port 0xecc0-0xecff mem 
0xfe000000-0xfe0fffff,0xfe102000-0xfe102fff irq 20 at device 2.0 on pci0
miibus0: <MII bus> on fxp0
inphy0: <i82555 10/100 media interface> on miibus0
inphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
fxp0: Ethernet address: 00:c0:9f:0a:ef:a7
amr0: <LSILogic MegaRAID 1.51> mem 0xfb000000-0xfb00ffff irq 30 at device 
10.0 on pci0
amr0: <LSILogic CERC ATA100/4ch> Firmware H661, BIOS 1.01, 16MB RAM
pci0: <display, VGA> at device 11.0 (no driver attached)
isab0: <PCI-ISA bridge> at device 15.0 on pci0
isa0: <ISA bus> on isab0
atapci0: <ServerWorks CSB5 UDMA100 controller> port 
0x8b0-0x8bf,0x376,0x170-0x177,0x3f6,0x1f0-0x1f7 at device 15.1 on pci0
ata0: channel #0 on atapci0
ata1: channel #1 on atapci0
ohci0: <OHCI (generic) USB controller> mem 0xfe100000-0xfe100fff irq 5 at 
device 15.2 on pci0
usb0: OHCI version 1.0, legacy support
usb0: SMM does not respond, resetting
usb0: <OHCI (generic) USB controller> on ohci0
usb0: USB revision 1.0
uhub0: (0x1166) OHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1
uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
pcib1: <ACPI Host-PCI bridge> on acpi0
pci1: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib1
fdc0: <floppy drive controller> port 0x3f7,0x3f0-0x3f5 irq 6 drq 2 on acpi0
fd0: <1440-KB 3.5" drive> on fdc0 drive 0
atkbdc0: <Keyboard controller (i8042)> port 0x64,0x60 irq 1 on acpi0
atkbd0: <AT Keyboard> irq 1 on atkbdc0
kbd0 at atkbd0
sio0: <16550A-compatible COM port> port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on 
acpi0
sio0: type 16550A
ppc0: <ECP parallel printer port> port 0x778-0x77f,0x378-0x37f irq 7 drq 1 
on acpi0
ppc0: Generic chipset (ECP/PS2/NIBBLE) in COMPATIBLE mode
ppc0: FIFO with 16/16/8 bytes threshold
ppbus0: <Parallel port bus> on ppc0
plip0: <PLIP network interface> on ppbus0
lpt0: <Printer> on ppbus0
lpt0: Interrupt-driven port
ppi0: <Parallel I/O> on ppbus0
orm0: <ISA Option ROMs> at iomem 0xec000-0xeffff,0xc0000-0xc7fff on isa0
pmtimer0 on isa0
sc0: <System console> at flags 0x100 on isa0
sc0: VGA <16 virtual consoles, flags=0x300>
sio1: configured irq 3 not in bitmap of probed irqs 0
sio1: port may not be enabled
vga0: <Generic ISA VGA> at port 0x3c0-0x3df iomem 0xa0000-0xbffff on isa0
Timecounter "TSC" frequency 1263451219 Hz quality 800
Timecounters tick every 10.000 msec
ad0: 38166MB <ST340016A/3.19> [77545/16/63] at ata0-master UDMA100
ad1: 38146MB <WDC WD400BB-18CAA0/16.06V16> [77504/16/63] at ata0-slave 
UDMA100
acd0: CDROM <SAMSUNG CD-ROM SC-148C/B100> at ata1-master PIO4
amrd0: <LSILogic MegaRAID logical drive> on amr0
amrd0: 78458MB (160681984 sectors) RAID 1 (optimal)
Mounting root from ufs:/dev/ad0s1a
WARNING: / was not properly dismounted
WARNING: /tmp was not properly dismounted
/tmp: mount pending error: blocks 20 files 5
WARNING: /usr was not properly dismounted
WARNING: /var was not properly dismounted
/var: mount pending error: blocks 4 files 4

Paul Schmehl (pauls at utdallas.edu)
Adjunct Information Security Officer
University of Texas at Dallas
AVIEN Founding Member
http://www.utdallas.edu/ir/security/


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