On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 at 2:42pm, Brashers, Bart -- MFG, Inc. wrote

> I've been using amanda-2.4.2p2 for a long time now, without problems.  In
> the last week or so, my Linux (2.4.20) machine has been crashing, apparently
> when amanda runs.  I see in the various logs in /var/log when amanda (e.g.
> xinetd in /var/log/secure with user amanda, from 127.0.0.1) and then nothing
> until the restart the next morning when I restart the computer.  
> 
> The real kicker was just now when I ran amflush (after amcleanup) to flush
> the last failed dump to the disk.  The system panicked after just a few
> minutes, with the "Machine check exception (kernel panic: cpu context
> corrupt)" error.  That usually happens when the system is too hot, or you
> have a bad motherboard, or something.  This machine has been in operation
> for about 6 months, so it's probably not the MB.  It's not that hot in the
> room, and I checked that the fins on the CPU fan weren't clogged with dust.
> 
> Any ideas here?  Anyone heard of such a thing?  Am I barking up the wrong
> tree thinking that amanda might be responsible for my crashes?  It's a real
> pain, not being able to run stuff at night (and not having backups makes me
> nervous).

That sure sounds a lot like hardware to me.  Backups can stress the system 
in a lot of ways -- CPU, I/O, etc.  Try to test each component -- run 
memtest86 for the memory, bonnie++ or iometer or tiobench for the disks, 
setiathome or some such for the CPU, some network testing, etc.

-- 
Joshua Baker-LePain
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University