[rt-users] RT/Apache suddenly hangs

Tomas Olaj tomas.olaj at usit.uio.no
Fri Feb 2 10:24:08 EST 2007


System:
=======
Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS release 3 (Taroon Update 8)
RT 3.6.1
Apache v2.0.59
Perl 5.8.7
mod_fcgi-2.4.2
Postgres 8.1.4

Approximately 80.000 tickets.

Problem:
========
RT/Apache suddenly becomes unavailable/hangs (normaly once a day), and 
requires Apache restart so RT can work again.

We are not sure what causes the problem, and if others have similar 
problems, we would be gladly to hear about it!

List of processes running and load on server:
=============================================
# ps aux | grep apache
root     22066  0.0  0.0  7964 3360 ?        S    Feb01   0:08 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   13898  0.0  0.0  7964 3320 ?        S    03:59   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/fcgi- -k start -DSSL
nobody   21699  0.0  0.0  8216 3832 ?        S    14:02   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   22628  0.0  0.0  8216 3840 ?        S    14:14   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   22648  0.0  0.0  8216 3840 ?        S    14:15   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   22650  0.0  0.0  8216 3820 ?        S    14:15   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   22939  0.0  0.0  8252 3756 ?        S    14:18   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   22941  0.0  0.0  8216 3848 ?        S    14:18   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   22945  0.0  0.0  8216 3804 ?        S    14:18   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   22953  0.0  0.0  8216 3756 ?        S    14:18   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   22955  0.0  0.0  8216 3796 ?        S    14:18   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   22959  0.0  0.0  8216 3812 ?        S    14:19   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   22961  0.0  0.0  8216 3800 ?        S    14:19   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   22962  0.0  0.0  8216 3788 ?        S    14:19   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   22965  0.0  0.0  8236 3804 ?        S    14:19   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   22966  0.0  0.0  8216 3788 ?        S    14:19   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   22967  0.0  0.0  8216 3812 ?        S    14:19   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23217  0.0  0.0  8228 3792 ?        S    14:21   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23218  0.0  0.0  8228 3744 ?        S    14:21   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23219  0.0  0.0  8244 3740 ?        S    14:21   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23224  0.0  0.0  8232 3768 ?        S    14:21   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23225  0.0  0.0  8216 3752 ?        S    14:21   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23230  0.0  0.0  8228 3776 ?        S    14:22   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23240  0.0  0.0  8220 3780 ?        S    14:22   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23241  0.0  0.0  8220 3740 ?        S    14:22   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23242  0.0  0.0  8248 3728 ?        S    14:22   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23250  0.0  0.0  8216 3732 ?        S    14:22   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23254  0.0  0.0  8216 3744 ?        S    14:22   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23255  0.0  0.0  8216 3732 ?        S    14:22   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23286  0.0  0.0  8216 3772 ?        S    14:22   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23290  0.0  0.0  8216 3760 ?        S    14:23   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23292  0.0  0.0  8248 3724 ?        S    14:23   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23294  0.0  0.0  8216 3764 ?        S    14:23   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23299  0.0  0.0  8108 3696 ?        S    14:23   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23326  0.0  0.0  8108 3672 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23327  0.0  0.0  8108 3708 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23328  0.0  0.0  8216 3696 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23336  0.1  0.0  8248 3744 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23337  0.0  0.0  8108 3692 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23338  0.0  0.0  8108 3680 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23339  0.0  0.0  8108 3692 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23352  0.0  0.0  8236 3712 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23353  0.0  0.0  8236 3720 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23354  0.0  0.0  8236 3712 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23355  0.0  0.0  8236 3712 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23356  0.0  0.0  8236 3716 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23358  0.0  0.0  8236 3716 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23557  0.1  0.0  8108 3708 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23558  0.0  0.0  8108 3656 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23559  0.0  0.0  8108 3656 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23560  0.0  0.0  8108 3692 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23561  0.0  0.0  8108 3672 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23562  0.0  0.0  8108 3660 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
nobody   23563  0.0  0.0  8108 3660 ?        S    14:25   0:00 
/local/opt/apache2/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
root     23569  0.0  0.0  1616  468 pts/0    S    14:26   0:00 grep apache



# uptime
  14:26:08  up 45 days, 22:31,  2 users,  load average: 8.14, 8.23, 8.01

It normaly spaws 5 Apache processes when starting. Here, it's unusual many 
processes.

Apache logs messages as before and even rt.log logs as nothing has 
happened.

Apache is normaly restarted once a night, due to memory leek which 
Mason/Perl/FastCGI is responsible for in some strange way. But this should 
not be the problem here.

I noticed that there was a mail-loop from a spam, that looped in the same 
time-frame as the server suddenly stopped. But I cannot draw any 
connections between those problems. I cannot find anything directly in the 
logs that says some problems/alerts with Apache. It just hang, and needs a 
restart.

How can I debug and find out what's wrong? Is there some kind of diffuse 
searches in RT that causes hang (search bug) ... that may be fixed in 
3.6.3 or... the release of 3.6.3 was quite fast after 3.6.2.

Sincerely,
Tomas

-- 
________________________________________________________________________
Tomas A. P. Olaj, email: tomas.olaj at usit.uio.no, web: folk.uio.no/tomaso
  University of Oslo / USIT (Center for Information Technology Services)
    System- and Application Management / Applications Management Group



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