Topic: SME External interface Problems, Strange results...

[PhilV]

Ok, I know me setup works because when I have freshly booted my SME server , (Ver 6.0), it all works fine.

However after a couple of days I am unable to reach the external interface via the web. I started looking into this problem and if I log into SME server from the LAN side, and then at the prompt I type:

ping www.google.co.uk

I get a response that says:

ping: sendmsg: operation not permitted

I'm not sure why this operation wouldn't be permitted, (I'm logged in as root when I send the ping command).

Checking the status on ifconfig, both nics seem ok, but if I:

ifconfig eth1 down
ifconfig eth1 up

Then try the ping command again it will work fine.

Anyone have any ideas as to why this is happening? I am going to be updating to 6.0.1 soon, but am interested to know the source of this problem, as 6.0.1 may not fix it.

Thanks,

Phil

[raem]

What is your server hardware spec, processor, memory etc ?

What contrtibs do you have loaded and running ?

What services are you running on the server ?

[PhilV]

Contribs Services etc: SME v6.0 is installed with no extra rpms or anythign other than the basic install. It is configured in server / gateway mode, thats all.

Spec: (It's an old machine pieced together!)
Pentium MMX 266Mhz
192Mb Ram
2x Netgear FA311 10/100 NIC

It seems to do everything fine, other than this! It is not used heavily as a server, maily just a gateway

[raem]

What about virus scanning and spamassassin, are they running ?

That box is a low end spec for v6.0. It might "appear" to run OK but when it is given a  few chores to do, it gets swamped.

More memory may be an answer.

I found I had to increase RAM to 384Mb to get basic services to run OK on a similar spec box.

Try
top -i
to see the processes that are running. Remember this will only show you what is happening "at the moment". Look at your swap memory figure to see if it is consistently high, that will be an indication that more memory is needed.

You could be getting hit by a lot of incoming requests.

Try
iptraf

[PhilV]

Hmmm When I run just the command:

top

I have a lot of 'supervise' beign run by 'root'. What are these processes?

No virus scanning or spamassasin unless these are installed by default. I'm only just getting into the whole SME thing!

Phil

[raem]

man top
for info

top shows all the processes

top -i (as I suggested)
will just show you the currently active processes which will be the ones "using up" your memory.

[PhilV]

Ok, well I was just wondering what all the 'supervise' tasks were.

Code: [Select]

top -i gives the following output:

Code: [Select]

 9:05pm  up 6 days,  1:28,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.00
109 processes: 107 sleeping, 1 running, 1 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states:  0.9% user,  0.9% system,  0.0% nice, 98.0% idle
Mem:   223100K av,  217320K used,    5780K free,       0K shrd,   75380K buff
Swap:  265064K av,    1300K used,  263764K free                   90492K cached
  PID USER     PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM   TIME COMMAND
26842 root      19   0  1032 1032   792 R     1.1  0.4   0:01 top


The only process (shown) running is 'top'.

Code: [Select]

top gives the following output:

Code: [Select]

 9:08pm  up 6 days,  1:31,  1 user,  load average: 0.04, 0.01, 0.00
109 processes: 107 sleeping, 1 running, 1 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states:  0.7% user,  1.3% system,  0.0% nice, 97.8% idle
Mem:   223100K av,  217320K used,    5780K free,       0K shrd,   75380K buff
Swap:  265064K av,    1300K used,  263764K free                   90492K cached

  PID USER     PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM   TIME COMMAND
26843 root      19   0  1032 1032   792 R     1.5  0.4   0:00 top
    6 root      12   0     0    0     0 SW    0.5  0.0  34:04 kscand
    1 root       8   0   472  444   412 S     0.0  0.1   0:06 init
    2 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00 keventd
    3 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00 kapmd
    4 root      18  19     0    0     0 SWN   0.0  0.0   0:00 ksoftirqd_CPU0
    5 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:01 kswapd
    7 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00 bdflush
    8 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00 kupdated
    9 root      -1 -20     0    0     0 SW<   0.0  0.0   0:00 mdrecoveryd
   13 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:17 kjournald
  104 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00 khubd
  181 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00 kjournald
  300 root       9   0   372  316   312 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 mingetty
  301 root       9   0   372  316   312 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 mingetty
  302 root       9   0   316  300   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:44 svscan
  319 root       9   0   304  272   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 supervise
  320 root       9   0   304  276   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 supervise
  328 root       9   0   472  456   400 S     0.0  0.2   0:05 cvm-unix-local
  331 cvmlog     9   0   296  264   248 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 multilog
  337 root       9   0   308  276   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 supervise
  338 root       9   0   304  272   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 supervise
  339 root       9   0   304  272   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 supervise
  340 root       9   0   304  272   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 supervise
  341 root       9   0   304  276   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 supervise
  342 root       9   0   304  276   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 supervise
  343 root       9   0   308  276   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 supervise
  344 root       9   0   308  276   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 supervise
  345 root       9   0   308  276   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 supervise
  346 root       9   0   308  280   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 supervise
  347 dnslog     9   0   332  324   276 S     0.0  0.1   0:07 multilog
  348 qmaill     9   0   296  264   248 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 multilog
  349 qmaill     9   0   300  268   248 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 multilog
  350 root       9   0   304  276   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 supervise
  351 root       9   0   304  280   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 supervise
  352 root       9   0   308  276   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 supervise
  353 root       9   0   308  280   260 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 supervise


Hence me wondering why all the supervise threads.

Phil

[raem]

Search & learn

http://cr.yp.to/daemontools.html

http://cr.yp.to/daemontools/supervise.html

http://www.linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/Process-Monitor-HOWTO-8.html

supervise monitors a service. It starts the service and restarts the service if it dies. The companion svc program stops, pauses, or restarts the service on sysadmin request. The svstat program prints a one-line status report. See man page by 'man supervise'

svc - control a supervised service.

svc changes the status of a supervise-monitored service. dir is the same directory used for supervise. You can list several dirs. svc will change the status of each service in turn.

svstat - print the status of a supervised service.

svstat prints the status of a supervise-monitored service. dir is the same directory used for supervise. You can list several dirs. svstat will print the status of each service in turn.

[PhilV]

So ray,

I have done top -i and found that the only thing running then is top itself,so what is the next step? Update the memory anyway?

[raem]

> However after a couple of days I am unable to reach the external interface via the web.

You need to do top -i and run other analysis tools when you experience the problem so you can see what's going on then.
Running them now on a server that is functioning OK won't tell you much


If you add more memory and the problem does not reoccur, then that is likely to be the answer. Sometimes trial & error is a reasonable approach.