rebooting and crashes on dell server

Thu Mar 2 22:11:34 PST 2006

I run software packages like this on many boxes without
trouble.  In any case, getting a user-mode program to make
the system randomly reboot is rather difficult even for
the crackers that are trying to do it.  And your going to
have log messages and such indicating what the problem is.

You need to load an OS supported by Dell - ie: Windows -
on this system first and run some stress-testers on it and
see if it locks up.   If it does not then try Linux and if that
works, you either use Linux or call Dell and tell them to make it
work with FreeBSD or your going to return the server to Dell.
You have 30 days from date of purchase to do this per UCC.

This should serve as a learning experience for you.  In
the future do not buy server hardware that was not designed
for the software you want to run.  That is Information
Technology 101.  There are many people that build and sell
servers they guarentee with FreeBSD, and even HP tests
their server products with FreeBSD, you can see that on
the website:  http://www.testdrive.hp.com,  Hell they even have
the Beastie logo on the front page.  I challenge you to find
Beastie on any server that Dell as any control over.  Dell
doesen't even have a FreeBSD forum on their support page.
As far as they are concerned it's Windows or Linux.

When you buy new server hardware from Dell
you are rewarding Dell for ignoring FreeBSD and you are punishing
HP who is supporting FreeBSD.  That is pretty
stupid if you want to support FreeBSD and a slap in the face
to the FreeBSD community.

It is one thing to buy old crappy Dell gear and try to get it
to run, but brand new gear?  What were you thinking?

Ted

>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of BSD Guy
>Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 9:45 PM
>To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>Subject: rebooting and crashes on dell server
>
>
>Theres alot to this problem, but I'll try to be
>concise so I don't loose people.  I started out with a
>cheap dell server running scsi raid and 5.x  It
>crashed or locked up with a kernel panic in a
>different process (everything, syslog, you name it)
>ever few days.  I swapped ram around figuring it was
>at fault since it was bought used on ebay.  Still no
>luck.
>
>Tired of messing with it, I bought a new dell
>poweredge 2650, with scsi raid, a couple gigs of ram,
>duals, and just a new system, configured it, copied
>user data over and switched to it.  Sure enough still
>the worst stability I've ever seen.  It has dual power
>supplies, each in a different UPS. I don't believe
>power is the problem or I'd see similar problems on
>the other server or router I have plugged in there.  I
>even upgraded to 6.0-Release-p1 but no luck.  
>
>It panics from time to time, but usually now it just
>randomly reboots.  Often at least every 36 hours. 
>Often 2-3 times a few minutes apart when it does.  I
>did install a debug kernel 2 weeks ago to try to get a
>crash dump, but no panic's since then.
>
>My make.conf is pretty simple:
>KERNCONF=crapbox
>CPUTYPE?=p4
>CFLAGS= -O -pipe
>NO_BLUETOOTH=   true    # do not build Bluetooth
>related stuff
>NO_I4B= true    # do not build isdn4bsd package
>NO_LPR= true    # do not build lpr and related
>programs
>NO_GAMES=        true    # do not build games (games/
>subdir)
>MAKE_IDEA=     YES     # IDEA (128 bit symmetric
>encryption)
># added by use.perl 2005-09-29 11:26:41
>PERL_VER=5.8.7
>PERL_VERSION=5.8.7
>
>Its not all that stressed of a box:
>load averages: 0.14, 0.07, 0.06
>Mem: 235M Active, 367M Inact, 160M Wired, 33M Cache,
>99M Buf, 81M Free
>Swap: 1024M Total, 1024M Free
>
>I've tweaked all the kernel values mentioned in the
>tuneable section of the manual, but the reboots
>continue.  The box runs radiator (a perl based radius
>server), apache+mod_ssl-1.3.x with php5, postfix-2.2,
>amavisd-new-2.3, courier-imap-4.0, pure-ftp, nrpe
>(nagios), net-snmp, ssh, and bind 9.3.1 all from ports
>(except radiator).  
>
>I run the same mail server setup on another server
>with no problem, although it processes far less mail. 
>I use radiator on another server with no problem. 
>This is a unique combination of packages I'm running,
>but no unique programs or configurations to this
>server. Between amavis and radiator it does alot of
>perl, and everything is a mysql lookup to another
>server.  While all logic and experience points to a
>hardware problem I feel like the complete hardware
>replacement has pretty much laid the blame on
>software.  
>
>I'm open to any suggestion as to what I might need to
>look at to clear this up. I'm about to have a nervous
>breakdown and insteall debian in desperation heh. I've
>tried a kernel without smp, I've tried disabling acpi
>on boot.  If you need any more information feel free
>to ask for it, I'll happily provide it.
>Thanks!  
>
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