Machine not locked-up but can't log on either

Ray Van Dolson rayvd at digitalpath.net
Thu May 4 17:06:30 UTC 2006


On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 01:02:12PM -0400, Ryan Golhar wrote:
> I have a machine configured just like 20 other machines (kickstart).
> Every once in a while the machine just hangs.  The X terminal is dead,
> but you can toggle to the other console terminals.  After you type in
> your name and password, it hangs. 
> 
> I'm able to ssh to the machine, and type a name/password but it hangs.
> I can't even log in as root from the console - root is set up as a local
> account in case the network goes out we can still get access to it.  
> 
> The only thing I can do is hit the power button but I'd like to find out
> why this is happening.  Any suggestions on what I can try?

Do you have LDAP authentication enabled on this box?

I have a box behaving similarly.  It'll happen at times if one of those
remote attackers trying many different ssh login attempts continues failing.
Seems like nss_ldap eventually either eats up all the memory (memory leak)
or uses up all file descriptors.

I've purposely avoided changing the SSH port or taking other preventative
measures on this machine as I wanted to try and track down the problem.
Just haven't had time yet. :)

Ray




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