I have had a server running Centos 5.0 for several years. Due to a variety of life circumstances, it has lain dormant, but there were some domains running fine, albeit with little/no traffic to speak of. I have made no changes, other than updating with yum. I checked the sites a week or two ago, and they came up no problem. Today, all is down. The sites time out, as do SecureCRT and FTP. Previously I was able to access the server no problem. When accessing through the LISH console, I get the following message:
============================================
no listening sockets available, shutting down
Unable to open logs
[FAILED]
Starting crond: [ OK ]
Starting xfs: [ OK ]
[ OK ] atd: [ OK ]
Starting Avahi daemon... [FAILED]


CentOS release 5.8 (Final)
Kernel 2.6.18.8-linode22 on an i686

localhost login:

============================================

Now, I could spend a lot of time trying to troubleshoot this, but I'm not that knowledgeable (yet), so I think my best solution is to just take my losses and rebuild to the newer CentOS and start over. However... there are files I need to back up, and without FTP access, I don't know how to get my files off. So, my question is... it's okay if the sites stay down for now, but how do I logon to get my files? Also, any ideas as to what caused this would be helpful, so when rebuilding I can keep an eye out for whatever the trouble was.

As you can tell, I'm somewhat of a newbie to this, but am willing to work at it.

Thanks for any ideas/help.

Joyce.

Did you reboot?

_________________
Either provide enough details for people to help, or sit back and listen to the crickets chirp.
Security thru obscurity is a myth - and really really annoying.

Yes, twice. I rebooted, waited a bit, then rebooted again. I'm at a loss as to what would cause this without any obvious changes to the server.

According to google, the consensus seems to be that httpd.conf got messed up.

Via Lish - stop the httpd service (chkconfig httpd off) then reboot.

If it boots ok, then you know that was the problem. Either roll back to a previous copy of httpd.conf, or troubleshoot what's causing the sockets available error (probably the Listen 80 line got messed up).

_________________
Either provide enough details for people to help, or sit back and listen to the crickets chirp.
Security thru obscurity is a myth - and really really annoying.

I stopped httpd and stopped apache. At this point, I am not interested in getting the websites up, only in being able to access the server. When pinging from my PC, the server is unreachable. I stopped iptables to see if it was a firewall problem, but that had no effect.

I setup a backup, but not sure if that will be a help, as whatever the problem is will be included in the backup <g>. Something went squirrelly the last week or two, but darned if I can see what it was, but the result is that there is no contact with the outside world. I'll keep working on this, but any suggestions are welcome.

-Joyce.

Looking through support, I came across this ticket, now closed:

[1271634] Emergency Reboot - atlanta19
Hello,

The host your Linode resides on (atlanta19) became unresponsive to our monitoring, and required a host reboot to resolve. Our system administrators are currently working to bring the host back online, and we'll let you know once they've completed this.

Regards,

Then, this.
Hello,

The host that your Linode resides on has been successfully rebooted. Your Linode will return to its last state shortly (running or powered off).

There is no need to issue boot jobs for your Linode at this time.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. Please feel free to update this ticket in the event that you have any additional questions or concerns about this matter.

Regards,

This seems to be about the time things went wrong, but didn't follow up, as it was considered resolved (my bad). Will follow up with them.

-Joyce.

no, the issue with the host is very likely fixed. your linode probably has a configuration problem that is preventing it from booting. Look in lish and see what the first thing to fail is.

I will do that. Though, there was no problem with the configuration prior to a few weeks ago, and no changes made, no upgrades done, no logons to the server. Very curious. But, I will continue to investigate. Thanks for your input.

-Joyce.

Maybe it now booted with the 3.5 kernel, and the old userland chokes on it?

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rsk, providing useless advice on the Internet since 2005.

That's something to look into. I'm at work now, and have limited ability to work on this, but will looking into this further when I get home.

Thanks,
-Joyce.

Ok, all is fixed. Not quite sure what happened, but Matt took a look at "/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0" and had me remove a line... "HWADDR=00:E3:EC:4A:61:02" and then restart the network service. I turned on httpd and apache, then rebooted, and all sites are up, and I have full access again. Now the real work begins, as I have a complete overhaul to do, but that's okay, as long as I can connect.

Thanks to all who gave suggestions. It's good to know there is such a valuable resource as these forums. Thanks again.

-Joyce.