CentOS 5.5 - kernel panic - Help!

[Tim Callaghan]

Jarod/All,

Thanks for the advice, I'll try and get something hooked up so I can
see the entirety of the kernel panic.

In the meantime, what are the potential implications of running with
the NMI Watchdog turned off?

-Tim


On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 11:25 AM, Jarod Wilson <jarod-ajLrJawYSntWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 9:59 AM, Tim Callaghan <tmcallaghan-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> I'm trying to track down the source of a kernel panic that I see once
>> or twice a week on one of my CentOS machines, specifics:
>>  CentOS 5.5
>>  ASUS p6x58d Motherboard
>>  Intel i7-920
>>  3 x Corsair X3 2GB
>>  WD 1TB 6Gb SATA - OS drive
>>  Intel X-25M SSD - data drive for DB benchmarking
>>
>> After running for a few days, the machine fails to respond to ping.
>> When I look at the console I see "kernel panic - not syncing - nmi
>> watchdog".  Nothing is logging to /var/log/messages, when I open the
>> file after lockup I see the log usual information plus all the new
>> restart info.
>>
>> I used this machine prior with Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.04 and would
>> occasionally experience lock-ups as well, I just never tried to track
>> them down when running Ubuntu.  I need it to be stable now.
>>
>> I'm considering booting with "nmi_watchdog=0" but concerned that I'll
>> just be masking a real issue.
>>
>> Any ideas?
>
> I would hook up a serial console on the machine to see if you can
> capture more info about the panic. Another option would be to set up
> kdump, so you (hopefully) get a vmcore file dumped when the machine
> panics. If you can capture a full backtrace and/or a vmcore, I'd file
> them in a bug at bugzilla.redhat.com, against Red Hat Enterprise Linux
> 5. Red Hat does look at bugs reported by CentOS users, though it
> likely wouldn't get as high a priority as a bug from a paying
> customer, but you get what you pay for. :)
>
> --
> Jarod Wilson
> jarod-ajLrJawYSntWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org
>