[rt-users] reall odd apache2 crashes with blank pages

[Gabriel Cadieux]

hi list,

is anyone familiar with odd behaviour of RT (i'm using rt3.6.7/apache2)
where there are several lines in a row in the apache error log stating
segmentation faults and the browser displaying a blank page upon browser
refresh or action (such as clicking on a link)?

also, when i view source on the blank pages, the code seems to be there!
at first i thought this was a browser problem, but then i started to notice
the crashing in the error log and saw a bunch of similar (but quite unrelated)
problems on google searching, which obviously have nothing to do with RT at all..
most proposed solutions don't apply to me, so i'm stumped..

it seems to happen when i leave the office overnight and come back in the
morning (or simply away from my desk for a while), which makes no sense to
me because there is no activity on this server while i'm not there (it's on
my desk; i'm the only one working on setting it up atm).. i'm 99.99999999%
sure it's not caused by hardware problems (ram, etc..) because i thoroughly
tested the memory/cpu using memtest86 on the gentoo install cd first,
and also ran a full battery of tests on the hard drives and RAID controller
card before installing... and the rest of the box runs tip-top, as far as i
can tell, there is no reason for apache's children procs to be crashing, so
i'm forced to assume something is awry with my RT config, or maybe my apache
build?

i'm using gentoo with a light (1.5mb) 2.6.26-r1 customized kernel which has
everything compiled in for the box (no modules), since the hardware on this
server will never be upgraded/changed. as stated before, everything else
works great. is there any way for me to find out exactly which system call
is causing these segfaults? i'm not too bright when it comes to debugging
or coding, so i'm trying to seek help here before trying to dive into tracing
stuff w/ gdb etc...

:(

i really hope someone can help...

thanks!

(P.S. thanks to everyone on this list for being so nice and helpful so far!
i hope i can return the favor in the future when my install is up and groovy :)

Gabriel Cadieux
Systems Engineer & IT Security Analyst
STI - Secure Technologies International, Inc.
Tel. (613) 830-3131 ext. 304
Cel. (613) 608-4635
Fax. (613) 830-5320
www.securetechnologies.ca