Console Random Text

[Derek Ragona]

At 06:27 PM 3/21/2008, Andy Christianson wrote:
>Hello everyone,
>
>
>
>I am having a very strange problem. My sever stopped responding in SSH.
>At the time,
>
>a co-worker said he was importing a MySQL database from a USB drive
>mounted as ext2fs.
>
>
>
>I went back to check on the console, and it was scrolling *EXTREMELY*
>quickly with
>
>apparently random text (it could have said something, but it was too
>fast to read).
>
>
>
>I could not switch to another virtual console. It would not respond to
>any keyboard input.
>
>
>
>Oddly enough, the machine was still responding to ICMP.
>
>
>
>Does anyone have ANY clues as to what this could be? This is a server
>that an entire
>
>Company runs on, so it's really important that I find out what is
>causing this.
>
>
>
>Thanks in advance! This FreeBSD community is the friendliest one I've
>found yet.
>
>
>
>-Andy

ICMP will continue to respond unless the system is completely locked 
up.  ICMP is a basic function built into the ethernet interface.  I suspect 
the rest of you system was so tied up, with CPU at 100%.  So the random 
text is whatever the system could still output to the console before being 
totally consumed.

You would do well to try a few things.  I would try the import of the data 
again but do it in two steps.  First move the data from the USB drive to 
the hard drive, and unmount the usb drive.  Then try the import from the 
file(s) on the hard drive.

Your system may have had trouble with the usb drive and that caused the 
system to freeze.

         -Derek

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