Syslog & kernel log daemons terminates randomnly.

[Mahesh Shinde]

Dear all,

We have a Mail Server with following Hardware/Software configuration.

IBM X-345 Intel-based Server
DUAL Intel Xeon 2.6 GHz
2.5 GB RAM
3 Nos. 72 GB HDD

OS: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 AS Update 5
kernel: 2.4.21-32.0.1.ELsmp

We are facing a strange problem of logging to "messages" and "maillog" 
files randomnly stops and syslog & klog daemons needs to start again.

After restarting the syslog & klog daemons using "service syslog restart" 
command, we have observed that "minilogd" is eating up physcial memory 
space of upto 1 GB and CPU resource as high as 20%. This leads to high 
load average on server.

My first question is why syslog & klog daemons stops suddenly/randomnly. 
How to solve this problem.
Second question is what is "minilogd" & why it eats up high memory and CPU 
resources.

Can anyone reply to this problem.

Thanks and regards,

Mahesh Shinde
C-DAC, Pune