Topic: add delete users

[Peter Birdsall]

I have a major problem with adding users to my 5.6 sme server.
If I add a user through the panel, the server goes into a 15 or 20 minute "crash", using all memory, and allowing no / or very slow access to it, even through the console.

At the end, the user is sometimes created, and sometimes not. Or the user is in the "accounts" file but not anywhere else.

I have about 100 users, and have deleted the records of all users previously deleted. (To try and solve the problem)

I have also followed the instructions elsewhere in this formum regarding the ldap db and setting it back to the way it should be.

I have also taken note of the comment that there is a redhat bug regarding more than so many users, however I believe that sme / e-smith can cope with the number of users 100-200 that we have.

Anyone got any ideas? I have to add at least 50 new users this week, and am not looking forward to doing it all manually - first in the console, then in e-smith, etc..

Peter

[Michiel]

> Anyone got any ideas? I have to add at least 50 new users
> this week, and am not looking forward to doing it all
> manually - first in the console, then in e-smith, etc..

There is no need to add all these users manually. Have a look at http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/mblotwijk/HowToGuides/lazy-admin-tools.htm.

As for the problems you're experiencing. Have you checked your log files? In particular /var/log/httpd and /var/log/messages might contain usefull clues.

Michiel

[Peter Birdsall]

Thanks Michiel

I will look at the scripts, they will be very useful, and it will be nice to see if they are a workaround for the problem I have.

In the log files

The message I get is:
Oct  4 16:44:17 wiu1 kernel: Out of Memory: Killed process 19515 (useradd).

Everything else is working just fine (other modules in e-smith)

Peter

[Michiel]

How much ram do you have? Could it be you are running also other, memory intensive applications?

[Peter Birdsall]

Yes, I thought about that. We have 1 GB of Ram, and the PC is a Pentium 4.2 with raid disks, etc.

We do have lots of mail, websites, db's etc, but I'm sure this is not the problem. It started from 1 day to the next. The server has been running for about 7 months.

Thanks for the thought, anyway!! I'll give the scripts a try tomorrow, maybe that will bring more information.

Peter

[Byte]

Try typing vmstat or free to see how memory you got left

[Peter Birdsall]

The add user script also siezes up the machine for 20 minutes, and the memory commands give the following:

vmstat

   procs                      memory    swap          io     system         cpu
 r  b  w   swpd   free   buff  cache  si  so    bi    bo   in    cs  us  sy  id
 1  0  0  64060  22608 245344 191336   0   1   196   200  170   192  31  36  33

free

                   total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       1031428    1012428      19000          0     245368     194312
-/+ buffers/cache:     572748     458680
Swap:       262008      64060     197948

It looks like the machine is using loads of memory. However, at this point working on it is fast. Just when add or delete users is used, then the machine siezes up.

[Peter Birdsall]

Actually, when I do the memory free commands on another clean e-smith the figure ratio is the same, so that must be normal.