20020104: Help!

>From: Gilbert Sebenste <address@hidden>
>Organization: NIU
>Keywords: 200201041551.g04FpMN14931 LDM RedHat 7.2 Linux

Gilbert,

>I am asking this as an absolute last resort. My machine, 
>weather.admin.niu.edu, has become unstable to the point of crashing almost 
>every other day. Sometimes it takes just a few hours; sometimes, a week. 

I have been following your travails on the ldm-users email list.

>When it does, there are no errors found in my /var/log/messages or any 
>logs files in that directory that show impending doom. I have plenty of 
>RAM, no disk space problems and this just started with Redhat 7.2.

We have been seeing problems - not related to the LDM - with 7.2 also.
Our experiences are that something that Netscape is doing is causing
7.2 to lock the machine up tight.  I just talked to Anne who is running
7.2 at home, and she has experienced the inode corruption that you
are reporting on her machine - and she is not running an LDM or any
other Unidata software there!.

>If any of you can devote just a little time to try to help a feed site get 
>back on his feet...I hope to have weather.admin back up around 11 AM after 
>it clears all these broken inodes with illegal blocks in them.

I am afraid that our best advice at this point is to back out of use of
RedHat 7.2 and revert to use of a fully patched 7.1.  This will be
painful to say the least unless you have backups.

I would:

o save all "stuff" that you do not want to lose from '/', '/usr', and
  '/home'.  Do this to a second disk, CD, tape, etc.

o boot from the 7.1 CD in single usr mode

o create new file systems on those that "need" to be updated:

  <as 'root'>
  mke2fs /dev/rsda1
  mke2fs /dev/rsdb2

o load 7.1 from CD into these existing partitions being sure to NOT
  do an automatic partitioning (you want to preserve /home!)

o load all 7.1 patches

>Either way, please let me know. Reply to this addresss, it will bounce to 
>weather.admin when it comes back up.
>
>Thanks for any assistance, as always.

Please keep us informed as to your progress.

Tom

>From address@hidden Fri Jan  4 14:40:21 2002
>Subject: Re: 20020104: Help! 

On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Unidata Support wrote:

> We have been seeing problems - not related to the LDM - with 7.2 also.
> Our experiences are that something that Netscape is doing is causing
> 7.2 to lock the machine up tight.  I just talked to Anne who is running
> 7.2 at home, and she has experienced the inode corruption that you
> are reporting on her machine - and she is not running an LDM or any
> other Unidata software there!.

How about if I just uninstall Netscape? I can do/handle that!!!

> I am afraid that our best advice at this point is to back out of use of
> RedHat 7.2 and revert to use of a fully patched 7.1.  This will be
> painful to say the least unless you have backups.
> 
> I would:
> 
> o save all "stuff" that you do not want to lose from '/', '/usr', and
>   '/home'.  Do this to a second disk, CD, tape, etc.
> 
> o boot from the 7.1 CD in single usr mode
> 
> o create new file systems on those that "need" to be updated:
> 
>   <as 'root'>
>   mke2fs /dev/rsda1
>   mke2fs /dev/rsdb2
> 
> o load 7.1 from CD into these existing partitions being sure to NOT
>   do an automatic partitioning (you want to preserve /home!)
> 
> o load all 7.1 patches

I'd rather not do this if I can merely uninstall Netscape. Let me know.
ALSO...

If all goes well, in a few hours, weather2.admin.niu.edu will be online. 
I want GEMPAK and McIDAS on there. After I get the LDM set up, is there 
any chance you can put McIDAS on there?

Also, single-processor Linux Redhat 7.2 machines here are experiencing NO 
problems whatsoever.

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Gilbert Sebenste                                                     ********
Internet: address@hidden    (My opinions only!)                     ******
Staff Meteorologist, Northern Illinois University                      ****
E-mail: address@hidden                                 ***
web: http://weather.admin.niu.edu                                      **
Work phone: 815-753-5492                                                *
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