CentOS 5.5 - kernel panic - Help!

[Jarod Wilson]

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