# Console becomes unresponsive, all else fine.



## unixgirl (Dec 2, 2009)

Greetings
 I have run into a very odd problem. I have a FreeBSD 6.2-STABLE server that has been running fine for some time. Recently however, after a reboot, the console will become unresponsive after about 15 minutes. All other functions are fine. You can still ssh in. I have tried replacing the MB and CPU. It has even happened while in the middle of typing.

 I would really appreciate it if someone could point me in the direction of things to check. 

 Thanks!

   Nicole


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## respite (Dec 2, 2009)

Try another keyboard?


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## Beastie (Dec 2, 2009)

Run *top*. Maybe there's something locking up. But usually FreeBSD remains usable under very high loads and you don't even notice unless some process is using 90% or something.

Something may be generating a lot of IRQs, so try *vmstat -i* too.


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## idle (Dec 4, 2009)

.. or better *systat -v*


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## anomie (Dec 4, 2009)

Any clues in /var/log/messages? 

If you suspect hardware for some reason, likelier candidates (in that they're more likely to fail) would be disk drives, PSU, and RAM - in that order.


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## vifits (Dec 5, 2009)

pls. instudio.

```
> pciconf -lv
> dmesg
> cat /etc/ttys
```


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## vifits (Dec 5, 2009)

&&

```
> cat /etc/rc.conf
```


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## unixgirl (Dec 23, 2009)

Sorry for the long delay.. I got pulled into several other projects and forgot to post a reply.

  The problem it seems turned out to be some interaction between Squid (which was in-front of the server) and Lighthttpd and very quickly all the sockets were becoming filled with TIME_WAIT  65000 of them!

 The solution I am using at the moment is to limit lighthttd to 512 connections via server.max-connections=256  in lighthttpd.conf. This seems to work nicely.

 When I have more time I need to see who and why things suddenly stopped playing well together.

 Thanks for everyone's suggestions!


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## unixgirl (Dec 23, 2009)

unixgirl said:
			
		

> Sorry for the long delay.. I got pulled into several other projects and forgot to post a reply.
> 
> The problem it seems turned out to be some interaction between Squid (which was in-front of the server) and Lighthttpd and very quickly all the sockets were becoming filled with TIME_WAIT  65000 of them!
> 
> ...


 Typo - I meant - Limit lighthttd to 256 connections via server.max-connections=256 

 Forgot to add.. that I find it sad/odd that having all the network sockets used up would cause the console to become unusable as well. The server was in no way out of memory and the console became unusable before sshing in did.


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## aragon (Dec 24, 2009)

unixgirl said:
			
		

> The problem it seems turned out to be some interaction between Squid (which was in-front of the server) and Lighthttpd and very quickly all the sockets were becoming filled with TIME_WAIT 65000 of them!



Sounds like a Denial of Service attack, possibly caused by a virus infection...


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