I was having problems recently with a dedicated production server, that runs my MySQL Server and a number of websites. It’s most annoying when your system crashes without any reporting in /var/log/messages
The tool of choice from the host provider SoftLayer was PassMark BurnInTest Linux which is installed with every dedicated server.
I will need to investigate open source alternatives, as this is a commercial product, but for the purposes of my pain, this included tool was well worth the investment.
************** RESULT SUMMARY ************** Test Start time: Sun Feb 22 16:02:48 2009 Test Stop time: Sun Feb 22 16:07:49 2009 Test Duration: 000h 05m 01s Test Name Cycles Operations Result Errors Last Error CPU - Maths 261 488 Billion PASS 0 No errors Memory (RAM) 2 3.081 Billion FAIL 1 Error verifying data in RAM Network: 127.0.0.1 412995 4.295 Billion PASS 0 No errors TEST RUN FAILED ********************* SERIOUS ERROR SUMMARY ********************* SERIOUS : 2009-02-22 16:07:31, RAM, SERIOUS: Error verifying data in RAM (x 1)
It was great to get a simple resolution to the problem, bad memory?
With a scheduled maintenance replacement I was operational again.
************** RESULT SUMMARY ************** Test Start time: Sun Feb 22 20:34:37 2009 Test Stop time: Sun Feb 22 20:39:38 2009 Test Duration: 000h 05m 01s Test Name Cycles Operations Result Errors Last Error CPU - Maths 267 406 Billion PASS 0 No errors Memory (RAM) 1 3.664 Billion PASS 0 No errors Network: 127.0.0.1 334578 3.480 Billion PASS 0 No errors TEST RUN PASSED ********************* SERIOUS ERROR SUMMARY *********************