[NTLUG:Discuss] Challenge....

[Steve Baker]

Will Senn wrote:
> Douglas King wrote:
> 
>> OK, I've got a problem.  This past week.....I've had a RedHat 7.3 
>> webserver shut down every night somewhere between the hours of 1:30 AM 
>> and 3:00 AM.  We have checked ALL the scheduled crons, etc. and find 
>> nothing that would be shutting it down "naturally".  The power light 
>> on the case remains on, but you cannot SSH into it, nor is the machine 
>> functional.  Log files don't indicate a lot to me...although, I did 
>> catch a potential hacker 2 nights ago...but he's since been dealt with.

This won't be your problem (probably) but it makes a good story - years
ago, we had a Sun server that did this.  We tried everything.  Eventually,
I stayed late at work and watched the damned thing.   Sitting at the
system console, everything is quiet - dead of night in the room next to
the server.  As usual, at around midnight, the machine crashed...and about
10 seconds later I hear the sound of a vacuum cleaner start up!

Yep - the office cleaners worked at night - and every night the sweet
little old lady who cleaned the computer room unplugged the server so
she could vacuum the room - and carefully plugged it back in again
as she left!!!

A hard fault to find - but easy to fix!

   :-)

---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
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