If I read your crontab comments correctly, you run amanda every night but only have a tape in the drive on Friday nights? If so, and if the Friday night/Sat. AM run is the only time you have crashes, then I would lean towards either a power supply problem or a scsi driver problem, although Edwin Hakkennes' comments about bad RAM are a possibility. Since bad power can manifest itself as all kinds of strange problems, you might want to check your voltages under load before you get too deep into hardware swapping.
Frank --On Monday, August 19, 2002 15:07:54 -0500 Jonathan Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Dear Frank (et al.), > > On Mon, 19 Aug 2002 14:16:22 -0500, Frank Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > I doubt it is an Amanda problem (you might want to also try the > > linux-managers mailing list <http://www.linuxmanagers.org/> ), but > > I'll toss out some suggestions of things to look at anyway: > > Thanks for the mail list tip -- I've subscribed and will try that venue > as well. > > > If this really is going to be an 'omni-server', 128M seems a little > > small. Probably not your crash problem unless you're filling up > > swap, which you seem to have enough of. > > Some day I hope to upgrade the ram, which is why I partitioned an > amount of swap space (> 512 Mb) that is pretty ridiculous for a system > with only 128 Mb. > > > The 300W power supply may also be too small, especially if your tape > > drives are internal. > > I'm trying to figure out what the potential aggregate power consumption > of the system's components might be -- there are surprisingly few > technical specifications that state this, though! :( > > > It could be the kernel. We have had serious issues with the virtual > > memory manger in a few of the mid 2.4 series, although the earlier > > and later versions worked fine. > > Perhaps I'll go with the latest RH 7.2 updated version then and try > patching it myself. Is 2.4.9-34 an improvement on 2.4.9-31, though? > > I've tried to remain RPM-based as much as possible to make life simpler > for everyone; I even used the amanda RPMs that came with RH 7.2 (and > I'd do it again, bub!). Sometimes, though, one has to live on the > cutting edge... > > > To make it relevant to Amanda-users, what's special about Saturday? > > Are you only running backups once a week, or do you run a different > > config then? > > Glad you asked. Here's our Crontab, with e-mail addresses removed: > > # $Id: Crontab,v 1.5 2002/08/16 21:04:55 amanda Exp $ > # > # Crontab entries for automated backup with amanda. > # > # The backup schedule expects no tape Sa-Th, but degraded dumps are > # performed. > > 20 12,16 * * 0-4,6 /usr/sbin/amcheck -clm DailySet1 > 30 22 * * 0-4,6 /usr/sbin/amdump DailySet1 > > # The degraded dumps are flushed Fr a.m. There is no mt offline > # because the amcheck.[N] file does not get generated with amflush -f > # (and then the output goes to stdout). So the first subsequent > # amcheck will be responsible for seeing if we finished the flush, > # ejected the tape, and inserted the requisite tape. > > 20 9 * * 5 /usr/sbin/amcheck -m DailySet1 > 50 9 * * 5 /usr/sbin/amcheck -M... DailySet1 > 30 10 * * 5 echo -e "\ny\n" | /usr/sbin/amflush DailySet1 > > # Expect to label a new tape on the afternoon of the last Friday of > # each month > > I was rather proud of this little snippet of shell programming... :) > > 10 12 * * 5 [ `date -d "1 week" +\%m` != `date +\%m` ] && \ > /usr/sbin/amlabel DailySet1 `date +DailySet1o\%Y\%m` > > # The full dump is run Fr late p.m. Part of our current setup is to > # make sure that the Perforce depot is properly set up for backup. > > 20 12 * * 5 /usr/sbin/amcheck -m DailySet1 > 30 12 * * 5 ls DailySet1/index | \ > xargs -l /usr/sbin/amadmin DailySet1 force > \ > /dev/null > 20 13-16 * * 5 /usr/sbin/amcheck -M... DailySet1 > 20 22 * * 5 ./p4backup > 30 22 * * 5 /usr/sbin/amdump DailySet1; \ > /bin/mt -f /dev/st0 offline > > # The new tape labeled on the last Friday of the previous month > # should be marked as not reusable. > > 10 6 1 * * /usr/sbin/amadmin DailySet1 no-reuse \ > `date -d yesterday +DailySet1o\%Y\%m` > > This should answer your question as well as display some ideas about > Amanda automation. It works very well so far. > > I thought about multiple configs, but then the coordination of indexes, > dump dates, etc. just gets needlessly complex. So I just bully around > a single config. > > > Good luck, > > Frank > > > > --On Monday, August 19, 2002 13:15:39 -0500 Jonathan Johnson ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > <snip> > > -- > / Jonathan R. Johnson | "Every word of God is flawless." \ > | Minnetonka Software, Inc. | -- Proverbs 30:5 | > \ [EMAIL PROTECTED] | My own words only speak for me. / -- Frank Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Systems Administrator Voice: 512-374-4673 Hoover's Online Fax: 512-374-4501
