On Oct 8, 2007, at 6:57 AM, Future Media (Luke Siemaszko) wrote:
I continually have stability problems with my Panther server. It
seemed fine when new 2-3 years ago, but has gradually degraded.
Earlier this year I thought it was my fault, for testing software
on the server. So I completely rebuilt the server from scratch,
original install discs, all the software updates applied before it
was ever connected to anything. And now I never test anything on
the server. It seemed Ok for a time, but now it's getting worse.
We are only a small office, not doing anything very challenging,
and it really shouldn't be this difficult.
While I have a software background, administering a server is
outside my area of expertise and I have had to learn a lot to get
this set up, I would love to outsource this, but in my neck of the
woods there doesn't seem to be anyone offering the relevant
skills. So I am going to have to sort it out it myself. So I
could do with some help please!
What I have:
G4/733 quicksilver
10.3.9 server
1.5GB RAM (max for a quicksilver)
Hitachi Deskstar 128GB IDE disc for system and archiving
Atto UL4S SCSI card
Maxtor Atlas 10K 70GB disc for user data
Sony AIT2 firewire drive for backup
The system disc only uses 4GB out of a 40GB partition, and the
user disk is 50% free, so there is no disc space issue
What I do with it:
client authentication
network home directories
mail server
file serving
firewall
web serving - but there is currently no load on this - it is
almost never accessed
Runs the following server apps
filemaker 8
moneyworks
group organizer
Plus retrospect 6
Typically there will be 4 users logged in, using the above apps.
Never more than 6 users. So just that plus basic file serving.
Share points are 1 for user home dirs, plus 2 for user data.
First problem. A couple of months after I set the server up it
started getting terminally slow- within a couple of minutes of
being restarted, it would be so slow that users could not log on.
Using Activity Monitor I discovered that this was due to AFP.
Sharing with NFS rather than AFP seemed to sure this particular
problem.
Now it behaves most of the time - but every few days, and
increasingly often, it will slow to a crawl. Mail.app and
Moneyworks take ages to get data from the server, and login process
either becomes incredibly slow or times out. Rebooting the server
seems to cure it - until it happens again in a few days.
Also I seem unable to modify firewall rules - I could when I set
the server up, but now when I try and change them in server admin I
get a spinning cog for ages, then the firewall crashes
Here are some basic thoughts :
- Do you regularly restore permissions (Disk Utility -> select the
system disk -> repair disk permissions) ?
- Could you have any huge log (multi-GB) files on the system ?
- is there space on the system disk for virtual memory ?
- it is not clear from the above, but could DNS be an issue ? Could
your primary DNS server be broken somehow ?
Then, you need to figure out what is going on when you go slow. Is
something eating all of the CPU ? Is something not authenticating ?
Is a disk almost full ? Since this doesn't happen to everyone, there
must be something different causing your problems, and you need to
find it.
Regards
Marshall
Also I can't get ftp serving to work, have done everything i says
in the manual - clients can't connect, either annonymous or using
known good logins.
But the slowing and needing a restart is the most urgent issue.
I'm really at the end of my tether........ could do with any word
of wisdom about what to do.
I guess it must be just be me..... most people don't seem to
experience the same problems. Perhaps I should try offloading the
apps from the server one at a time onto another machine. Starting
with Retrospect. Does that seem like a good idea?
Thanks for any advice!
Regards,
Luke Siemaszko
Director, Future Media Systems Ltd.
Unit 2 Grange Rd. Industrial Estate, Christchurch, Dorset, BH23 4JD
Tel. +44 (0)1425 270511 Fax: +44 (0)1425 278615
Website: www.futuremediasystems.com
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