CentOS - Feb 2005 - IBM x226 lockups, convert CentOS to RHEL 3.0

I have a friend who has been having an intermittent problem with his 
nice, shiny new IBM x226 server.  It's a Xeon processor, 1.5Gb RAM, 
hardware RAID controller running CentOS 3

The system will will sometimes run for a couple of weeks, then simply 
lock up -- nothing on the console, no response to pings, no
"caps-lock"
lights, no kernel panic indicators, nothing in the logs to indicate the 
  problem.  Other times the machine may lock up three times in one day. 
At the last call to me he did report that the hard drive lights flicker 
every once in a while during one of the systems catatonic states, but 
other than that there was no indication of life.

We have been in contact with IBM servicce and have run their hardware 
tests, which perform flawlessly.  We have now come to the point where 
they claim that "CentOS is not a supported OS" and even though they 
acknowledge CentOS as a RHEL clone, they argue that there is no support 
path for them to follow to pursue possible software problems.

The system owner is ready to buy RHEL, just to get service on his 
machine, but I am wondering -- how difficult is it to convert from 
CentOS to RHEL?  Is it similar to the conversion from RHEL to CentOS or 
from WBEL to CentOS?  I would like to avoid a complete reload.

Does anyone else have any suggestions?

TIA,

Barry

Barry L. Kline wrote:
> The system owner is ready to buy RHEL, just to get service on his 
> machine, but I am wondering -- how difficult is it to convert from 
> CentOS to RHEL?  Is it similar to the conversion from RHEL to CentOS or 
> from WBEL to CentOS?  I would like to avoid a complete reload.
In all honesty, trying to extract support from IBM, I would personally 
recommend a complete reinstall.  Once the problem is sorted out (and 
it's Not CentOS) he can always migrate back to CentOS via one of the 
published paths.
> Does anyone else have any suggestions?
Does Redhat support that box?  They must if you have tried support.

.dn

On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 14:33:27 -0500, Barry L. Kline
wrote:
> I have a friend who has been having an intermittent problem
> with his nice, shiny new IBM x226 server.  It's a Xeon
> processor, 1.5Gb RAM, hardware RAID controller running CentOS 3
>
> The system will will sometimes run for a couple of weeks, then
> simply lock up -- nothing on the console, no response to
> pings, no "caps-lock" lights, no kernel panic indicators,
> nothing in the logs to indicate the problem.  Other times the
> machine may lock up three times in one day. At the last call
> to me he did report that the hard drive lights flicker every
> once in a while during one of the systems catatonic states,
> but other than that there was no indication of life.
>
I had a very similar problem at a customer of mine. It took a few 
month to figure the problem. 

The system was running backups of the proc directory and that would 
crash the system on random basis because it would create the wrong 
drive size. After that no crash, ever.

--
Thanks
syv at 911networks.com
When the network has to work

Barry L. Kline wrote:
> 
> Does anyone else have any suggestions?
Hey Barry -- have you tried upgrading/downgrading along the kernel line? 
Ie, try the core kernel from the very first release, then maybe a kernel 
from update 2, then the update 4 era kernels?

Same goes for glibc -- see if you can try upgrading/downgrading along 
the update chain and see if it has any effect, coupled with the above 
kernels. Something as simple as a different gcc used to compile the 
kernels/glibcs may have introduced a bugaboo down deep where you'd never 
find it...

Just a thought.
-te

-- 
Troy Engel | Systems Engineer
Fluid, Inc | http://www.fluid.com