[ale] suddenly finding computer 'seized-up'....

[Dow Hurst]

Courtney,
I've just assumed everyone on the list would be proficient in the use of 
ssh.  Maybe we should have a tutorial on this most necessary of tools?!!

SSH is the secure form of what telnet provides.  Most all Linux distros 
come with this preinstalled in the default selections and will run the 
sshd server on boot.  Normally port 22 is where the sshd server lives.  
The ssh client will use hostnames or IPs to connect.  So if you have 
another Linux machine on your network you can:

ssh hosedmachine

and you should get a password prompt back.  If not then:

telnet hosedmachine 22

will get you a string of text if the sshd server is running.  Type some 
gibberish and press Enter to be disconnected from the server.  It should 
tell you what server version your machine is running.  There are lot's 
of uses for ssh for sysadmins.  O'Reilly has an updated book on SSH.  If 
your system is Sys/V based then /etc/init.d/sshd start should start the 
secure shell server up.  There are cools things like key based 
passwordless logins that are highly secure or rsync backup scripts thru 
ssh.  It's a vital tool for sysadmins to encrypt and protect the login 
and data passed between machines that ftp and telnet expose to the world.

My thoughts on your problem are:
1. that your screensaver is kicking with powermanagement but has some 
problem or bug and won't "wake up"

2. A hardware interrupt problem can lock up your kernel so no one really 
is at home.  A little googling revealed this thread as a start:
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-bugs/2003-May/000685.html
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-bugs/2003-May/000687.html

Maybe your modem settings need tweaking instead of what they recommend?  
Are you using hardware flow control or software flow control?
Dow



Courtney Thomas wrote:
>Steven,
>
>Thank you for your suggestions.
>
>I guess telnet would be the easiest to try, huh ?
>
>I've no experience with the other two and both machines are on my local 
>LAN so ssh is not required I assume, but any further elaboration on how 
>to use these 3 tools would be gratefully accepted.
>
>Cordially,
>Courtney
>
>
>
>Steven A. DuChene wrote:
>  
>>If the box is still running, have you tried accessing it via ssh/rsh/telnet
>>from anoter system prior to just pulling the plug for a hard reset?
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>
>>    
>>>From: Courtney Thomas <cc.thomas at earthlink.net>
>>>Sent: Mar 20, 2006 2:26 PM
>>>To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts <ale at ale.org>
>>>Subject: [ale] suddenly finding computer 'seized-up'....
>>>
>>>Recently several times I've left my computer downloading for extended 
>>>periods to return to a frozen machine, i.e. not working are the mouse, 
>>>keyboard or monitor but the box itself is still running; and, of course, 
>>>the only way to resume is...a hard reset. Fortunately, this has not 
>>>resulted in disaster. I've fsck'd all the partitions before rebooting 
>>>and, seemingly nothing critical has been lost.
>>>
>>>I should mention that often but not always, when I try to print from 
>>>Mozilla 1.7.7 [not Firebird, but rather Mozilla/5 Gecko 20051115] I get 
>>>a core dump. This usually occurs after Mozilla has been running awhile, 
>>>not when first started. I wonder if all this is from a Mozilla memory 
>>>leak and if so, how can I tell ? Or should I just upgrade Mozilla [HOW 
>>>?] to remove this suspect, or is the recent version equally likely to 
>>>repeat.
>>>
>>>I also ran memtest86 and discovered nothing.
>>>
>>>I'm intermittently getting a stream of sio [sio1, irq=3] overflows,  the 
>>>mouse is on com1 and modem on com2.
>>>
>>>Nevertheless, clearly, I need to resolve this ASAP.
>>>
>>>A suitable algorithm [or a pointer to same] pertaining to hard&soft-ware 
>>>resolution...would be appreciated.
>>>
>>>Gratefully,
>>>
>>>Courtney
>>>      
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>>    
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