Sorry about the overnight downtime, it looks like my backup device (a Western Digital Book Backup) went down. Normally this isn't a big problem, but, this device is an external unit designed for someone with a laptop or desktop computer. I had this backup drive plugged into the server and it was probably online constantly over the past year. Not bad, actually.

Anyway, since the device failed, our server OS was trying to mount it at boot. Since we are fairly large UPS, the system rarely reboots on its own. I decided to reboot the server after running an update yesterday afternoon, and the system was waiting to be repaired at the console.

Because I am not physically on site, this posed a problem. I can't simply walk up to a screen and start typing. With Arne's help, we were able to get the remote control card (called HP iLO) to function. We both logged in and diagnosed the problem.

Anyway, long story and a long night. We were able to get the system back online by telling the system to IGNORE the USB drive during the boot process (IE: Not mount it). I'll have to replace the backup device when I am back on site after the holidays. Probably need to buy a better backup solution. If you have any ideas, please let me know!!

Thanks, again, for your patience.

PS: If you're a geeky-type, check out my blog on this post here: http://www.tatoonie.com/?p=185

I also want to say thanks to Arne for putting in so many hours on this problem and notifying me of the real problems at hand.

Yeah, it took both of us to get it figured out. After getting the remote console working, I was able to figure out what the root problem was fairly quickly, but forgot to try one key part to effect the repair. Tired, I guess. So Mike finished it this morning. Had I thought of that last part last night the site would have been back several hours earlier.

Hey thanks guys I really like this site and your guys work makes it happen

Thanks for all you guys do. And Have fun and be careful in Brazil Mike.

Happy Holidays to everyone else as well.

Dave

Edited December 31, 201014 yr by Zs-ondabrain

Thank you both for your extraordinary efforts.

Dumb question: Why run the backup 24/7? Couldn't you just run it once a day, or twice a day, or once an hour and have it shut down afterwards? That would certainly increase it's lifespan.

Have a Happy New Year!

Chris

Mike has been backing up to disk. The backups run nightly, but the disk has been mounted at bootup to be always available. There are several ways to do that in Linux, but the way it had been done prevents the operating system from loading if expected disks aren't available. Bad disk? No forums...

Mike has been backing up to disk. The backups run nightly, but the disk has been mounted at bootup to be always available. There are several ways to do that in Linux, but the way it had been done prevents the operating system from loading if expected disks aren't available. Bad disk? No forums...

Got it.

Thanks, Arne.

Chris