Server gets a high load, but no CPU use, and then later stops respond on the network

[Anton Yuzhaninov]

On 2016-09-13 19:23, Stxe5le Bordal Kristoffersen wrote:
> I'm struggeling with finding out what is wrong with my current setup.
> It is a supermicro server, running 10.3-RELEASE-p7, and its main job is to
> act as a file server (smb, ftp, plex).
>
> about once a day, but not in any pattern, it starts getting a load of 5-10
> and usually stops responding over the network before I notice it. On the
> IPMI console, it is still alive, but each key I press usualy ends up typing
> 4-20 identical letters, making it difficult to debug.

It worth to get working remote console first.

With Supermicro server you usually have two options:
1. IPMI Serial over LAN
2. IP-KVM provided by BMC

1. IPMI SOL can be used from other BSD/Linux host using ipmitools
ipmitool .... sol activate

IPMI SOL should be configured on both IPMI (via ipmitool) and server 
(/boot/loader.conf, /etc/ttys).

2. IP-KVM can be accessed using Java application from BMC web interface 
or using IPMIView:
ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/utility/IPMIView/Linux/

Which method do you use?
Is keypress repeated always or only when server is overloaded?

Anyway both methods should work, but has own issues:

1. Remote user for ipmitools can be activated only via web interface 
(and NULL user can't be used). Default user ADMIN work via ipmitool too, 
but I wanted to create separate users.

2. Java app from server's BMC web interface works only with some JRE 
versions (long time ago it worked only with Sun/Oracle JDK and failed to 
work with OpenJDK). IPMIView worked better for me (with less glitches) 
than app from BMC web interface. I recommend to use IPMIView.

3. It is more reliable and secure to use dedicated IPMI LAN port on server.