Re: stability issues

On 9/18/07, Willy-Bas Loos <willybas(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm running a PostgreSQL 8.1.9 server on Debian etch (default installation,
> w/ PostGIS from Debian repositories).
> The machine has double Xeon 5130, 4 GB of DDR2 ECC Reg. RAM and a
> two-sata-disc Raid 0 cluster. I don't know the brand of the memory nor the
> HDDs. The Riad controller is a 3Ware 8006-2.
>
> Lately i've been confronted by some failures in several PostgreSQL clusters.
> 3 weeks ago a cluster crashed when i was reindexing it, beond my repair.
> Last week we've been getting Toast warnings and shared index problems on
> another cluster. I solved the shared index issue, but the Toast trouble
> remained, in more than one database on that cluster. I dumped the databases,
> created another cluster and shut the troubled one down. (problems were
> solved).
> I've asked our provider to do a filesystem check, (e2fsck -f /dev/sda1)
> which indicated that "there's nothing wrong with the filesystem".

Too little really. This system needs to have serious diagnostics run
on it to find out what the problem is.

> This doesn't feel right.
> Is there anything else i should check?

Yes. If you can't get them to run real tests with memtest86 etc, then
try running very large compiles, like the linux kernel with -j4 or -j8
and watch for sig 11s while doing it. Set it up to run the compiles
in a look looking for errors in compiling.

Better yet, find a hosting provider who knows what they're doing.
Your data / uptime are worth it.