[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
On Sat, 18 Jun 2005 23:12:17 +0100 Neil Williams wrote: > On Saturday 18 June 2005 10:58 pm, Grant Sewell wrote: > > Just recently my main computer (Debian Sid) has been acting a little bit > > strangely. About every 3rd day or so, at about 10:30pmish the harddrive > > thrashes like you wouldn't believe > > Sounds like logrotate or another maintenance task. Inspect the crontab of the > root user. > # crontab -l Yeah, I thought about that too. I have no root-user-crontab, only a system crontab, and there don't appear to be any entries that run at 10:30pm: /etc/cronttab: 17 * * * * root run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly 25 6 * * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily 47 6 * * 7 root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly 52 6 1 * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly contents of /etc/cron.daily, cron.weekly, and cron.monthly (cron.hourly is an empty directory): # ls /etc/cron.daily/ 5snort cfengine find man-db netkit-inetd samba standard tetex-bin webmin-ldap-user-simple bsdmainutils exim4-base logrotate modutils quota slapd sysklogd webalizer # ls /etc/cron.weekly/ cfengine cvs kdevelop3 lpr man2html man-db smsclient sysklogd # ls /etc/cron.monthly/ proftpd scrollkeeper standard I was thinking that it might be snort, but (if I'm reading the cronttab correctly) it should be run daily at 06:25am? > > and bring the machine to an unusably > > slow state for about 10-15 minutes, and then resumes business as normal, > > A second box would be the most useful thing. SSH into the main computer from > the second box prior to the activation, then watch a 'top' report. Done that. When I try to ssh in it just sits there and waits for the 10-15 minutes until the system has calmed down again. Also tried switching to another virtual terminal, that works but is unbearably slow. Running top doesn't seem to show anything untoward, certainly there doesn't seem to be anything that's using lots of CPU time, although kswapd does seem to be higher up the list than normal. > > but for some reason KDE has lost it's ability to actually manage Windows or > > virtual desktops, so I cannot actually do anything besides reset the X > > session, which is not ideal. > > Probably not to be recommended, either. What you need is for this to happen at > another time, rather than be interrupted. That's what I'm getting at. Although I don't know what is causing this, I would be very surprised if it wasn't *something* to do with normal activity. However, since I don't know what's causing it, I cannot interrupt it. What I was saying is that once the system has calmed down again, KDE seems to have forgotten it's job. Windows no longer have borders or title bars; the kicker is present but does nothing; right-clicking on the desktop does produce a context menu, but clicking on "run command" does nothing at all. Since the kicker seems to be non-functioning, I can't even logout of KDE properly, so a <CTRL><ALT><BackSpace> is needed. I'll note again, I am not interrupting the process that causes the machine to go nuts - I cannot since I don't know what it is. > > Incidentally, and I have no idea whether this is related or not but... I > > have noticed that I also seem to have an unusual process running: > > /USR/SBIN/CRON. Now, I know cron is not unusual, but should it be in upper > > case when shown with "ps auxwww"? > > Makes no odds. It's the task cron is running that matters. Yes, I know that cron itself doesn't really make a difference. What I was asking here is should it be in upper case? There are 0 other processes, even those with a full path in their description, that are in upper case. Is it normal for cron to be in uppercase, or *anything* else for that matter to ever be in upper case like this? Grant. -- Artificial intelligence is no match for nuratal stidutipy. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe. FAQ: www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html