Server Down All Night

[mitx]

My server has been down all night and its 1am now. My inbox is full of pissed of customers of mine. My ticket has "assigned" status but nothing all night. I can access my server with sftp but when i try to access the files with the browser its just "unable to connect". I can't have this stuff happening on a dedicated server. Im really angry, and my customers are threatening charge back because this is the third time in 2 weeks that this has happened!

[the_ancient]

It sounds like apache is down, if you on a dedicated box why did you not just resstart apache yourself?

if this is the third time, and apache crashed each of the times, then I would suspect one of your customers is abusing the server

[Daniel_DBS]

if this is the third time, and apache crashed each of the times, then I would suspect one of your customers is abusing the server

sounds right to me.. i wouldnt think that apache would just crash like that unless there was a major load on it.. you can try to login with ssh and restarting apache

(for CentOS)
1. SSH into the server.
2. Login with root privs. or su in order to get root access
3. type: /etc/init.d/httpd restart
4. verify the restart was successful by attempting to re-access your site.

the process is similiar for fedora as well so hopefully that helps

[mitx]

sounds right to me.. i wouldnt think that apache would just crash like that unless there was a major load on it.. you can try to login with ssh and restarting apache

(for CentOS)
1. SSH into the server.
2. Login with root privs. or su in order to get root access
3. type: /etc/init.d/httpd restart
4. verify the restart was successful by attempting to re-access your site.

the process is similiar for fedora as well so hopefully that helps

Hey that worked!! thanks!

[the_ancient]

Hey that worked!! thanks!

You have to remember that with Dedicated Servers your more responsible for it than on a shared server, you have to take a more proactive role in managing and monitoring the server unless you want angry clients

if you dont already, you should be actively monitoring it with real time monitoring services located OFF network, preferably in more than one location, these will alert you to an outage.

there are many service providers the will do this for you, some of them free, where you can get alert via email, IM, or SMS.

You also need to look at the logs and stats to find out what caused these outages and how to fix it so they dont occur again, if it is user, find out if they have a bad script or if they are just abusing your service. If it is a mis configured box, fix it, etc

Just getting it back online is only a small part in all of this

[Daniel_DBS]

Hey that worked!! thanks!

no problem.. hopefully you figure out exactly why the server is doing this

[mitx]

yea im paying for an hour of service right now. There have been reports of brute force attacks coming from my server too and I can't have that kind of crap happening. Especially if word gets out, its not good for my business. Hopefully the staff can fix it. Im pretty happy though with the price and service of jaguar pc.

[mitx]

Well the same thing is happening again. Cant access anything on my server from web browser, I can only login from sftp. I restarted the apache but still doing the same thing. This time restarting apache didnt fix it. Any ideas?

[mitx]

never mind, it appears to be the firewall.

[leighbee]

if you dont already, you should be actively monitoring it with real time monitoring services located OFF network, preferably in more than one location, these will alert you to an outage.

Can I suggest alertra.com - Multi location checking at up to 1 minute intervals (I personally just stick to 5) - Email, SMS, MSN, and a myriad of other notification methods. and has a very useful spot check facility for quick checks for free too.

I pay about $8 for the service and its paid me back in dividends! Especially since helium.nocdirect.com is misbehaving so much!