Dell 1950 Unexplained Reboots

[Stephen Dowdy]

Gordon Stronach wrote, On 05/18/2009 08:29 PM:

> [gstronach at db2-www ~]$ cat /proc/sys/kernel/panic
> 60
> [gstronach at db2-www ~]$ cat /proc/cmdline
> ro root=/dev/vgSys/lvRoot panic=60

Yep, so 60 seconds after a kernel panic, the system
will reboot.  You could set it to '0' and hope that you
can still read the console when you get in after a panic.
(but often i find that power-save/sleep or something
disables the video and can't be rewoken (kernel's not
listening...)

seeing that this is a webserver (from the prompt ;), it's
highly possible that it's getting loaded to the point of
resource exhaustion.

> How would be the best way to do a console redirection to another machine
> and log it to a file ?

probably easiest with a crossover serial cable and another system.
I believe kermit should be able to login a session, if you have a
windows laptop, something like hyperterminal can probably log.
or use something like 'conman' that's more specialized for that
task.  get the pe1950 manual from support.dell.com and
configure console redirection in the BIOS per the section on "setup", iirc.

--stephen