emergency reboot a hung Linux host

Sometimes you need something that can kick a host a bit harder than the standard reboot command. Even if you include the -f switch to force, a hung task can prevent your host from rebooting.

Try this – first enable the sysrq setting, then trigger. Your host should reboot immediately.

sudo echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq
sudo echo b > /proc/sysrq-trigger

Note : This is effectively a hard reset which does not cleanly shut services or tasks down. You may need to check your disk on some operating systems.

nginx – setup as reverse proxy

Previously to take down this wordpress site all you needed to do was hold down F5 for about 20 seconds then the site would take about 5 mins to recover.

There were a few factors causing this and quite a few different methods to solving the problem. WordPress itself is run on php / apache, apache has an evasive mod which can block certain IPs depending on the defined abusive behavior (typical DDOS attack). Since i like to run a few websites behind a single IP i looked at fixing the issue closer to the perimeter….

Enter nginx (engine x) as a reverse proxy, the site now typically caches all content and serves it straight out of memory. No longer does mysql / apache kill itself under high load on the backend…

nginx

You will need to create the nginx directories if they dont already exist. Check /var/log/nginx/error.log (default ubuntu) if any issues starting the service.

sudo aptitude install nginx
sudo service nginx start

The following added to http {}
(located in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf)

log_format cache '***$time_local '
'$remote_addr '
'$upstream_cache_status '
'Cache-Control: $upstream_http_cache_control '
'Expires: $upstream_http_expires '
'"$request" ($status) ';
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log cache;
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;
server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
proxy_cache_path /var/www/nginx_cache levels=1:2
keys_zone=one:10m
max_size=1g inactive=30m;
proxy_temp_path /var/www/nginx_temp;

the following added to location / {}
(located in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default)

proxy_pass http://sigtar;
proxy_next_upstream error timeout invalid_header http_500 http_502 http_503 http_504;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_buffering on;
proxy_buffer_size 16k;
proxy_buffers 32 16k;
proxy_cache one;
proxy_cache_valid 200 302 304 10m;
proxy_cache_valid 301 1h;
proxy_cache_valid any 1m;
client_body_buffer_size 128k;
proxy_busy_buffers_size 64k;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_pass_header Set-Cookie;

Note if you have problems with wordpress redirect issues… check this post;

http://tommcfarlin.com/resolving-the-wordpress-multisite-redirect-loop/

Also confirm you have this line in http {}

server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;

Very basic load test, user load time is reasonably consistent as user count increases.
http://loadimpact.com/load-test/sigtar.com-ad07b7870a75c854a935752b0a032c53

load test

use nmap to port scan / find free IPS

I use angry IP scanner in windows, linux has a good util for port scanning an ip range called nmap;

Grab nmap from usual repositories

sudo nmap -sP 192.168.9.0/24 (will show hosts up and resolve mac addresses to vendors)

sudo nmap -v -sT 192.168.9.0/24 (will show hosts up and the various open ports)

sudo nmap -v -sT 192.168.9.104 (will show particular host and the various open ports)

Starting Nmap 6.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2013-07-12 11:48 NZST
Initiating ARP Ping Scan at 11:48
Scanning 192.168.9.104 [1 port]
Completed ARP Ping Scan at 11:48, 0.00s elapsed (1 total hosts)
Initiating Parallel DNS resolution of 1 host. at 11:48
Completed Parallel DNS resolution of 1 host. at 11:48, 0.00s elapsed
Initiating Connect Scan at 11:48
Scanning win2012-veeam.fritz.box (192.168.9.104) [1000 ports]
Discovered open port 111/tcp on 192.168.9.104
Discovered open port 445/tcp on 192.168.9.104
Discovered open port 3389/tcp on 192.168.9.104
Discovered open port 135/tcp on 192.168.9.104
Discovered open port 139/tcp on 192.168.9.104
Discovered open port 49155/tcp on 192.168.9.104
Discovered open port 1063/tcp on 192.168.9.104
Discovered open port 2049/tcp on 192.168.9.104
Discovered open port 3260/tcp on 192.168.9.104
Completed Connect Scan at 11:48, 4.21s elapsed (1000 total ports)
Nmap scan report for win2012-veeam.fritz.box (192.168.9.104)
Host is up (0.00059s latency).
Not shown: 991 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
111/tcp open rpcbind
135/tcp open msrpc
139/tcp open netbios-ssn
445/tcp open microsoft-ds
1063/tcp open kyoceranetdev
2049/tcp open nfs
3260/tcp open iscsi
3389/tcp open ms-wbt-server
49155/tcp open unknown
MAC Address: 00:50:56:9C:68:FA (VMware)

Read data files from: /usr/bin/../share/nmap
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 4.25 seconds
Raw packets sent: 1 (28B) | Rcvd: 1 (28B)

Linux – install vmware tools onto guest

fire up the vm, then run the following after initiating a vmware tools install…

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
cd /tmp
tar zxf /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-x.x.x.gz
cd vmware-tools-disstrib
./vmware-install.pl

Then just follow the prompts through to the end.

If your running fedora or similar make sure your’ve got gcc and kernel headers…. (you’ll probably have to update kernel too)

yum update
shutdown -r now
yum install -y gcc make kernel-devel perl

Ubuntu 12.x

apt-get install open-vm-tools

some notes from fedora 13…

Did you also copy the missing/misplaced include file?

(Having just updated the kernel I am getting the original messages, so have copied them below as I workaround the problem)

= = = First I get:

What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running
kernel? [/usr/src/linux/include] /usr/src/kernels/2.6.33.5-112.fc13.x86_64/include

The directory of kernel headers (version @@VMWARE@@ UTS_RELEASE) does not match
your running kernel (version 2.6.33.5-112.fc13.x86_64). Even if the module
were to compile successfully, it would not load into the running kernel.

= = = Then over in another session at
/usr/src/kernels/2.6.33.5-112.fc13.x86_64/include

[Tom@tlsf13a include]$ find . -iname ‘*relea*’
./config/kernel.release
./generated/utsrelease.h
[Tom@tlsf13a include]$ sudo cp -p generated/utsrelease.h linux/

= = = Then back in first session:

What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running
kernel? [/usr/src/linux/include] /usr/src/kernels/2.6.33.5-112.fc13.x86_64/include

Extracting the sources of the vmmemctl module.

= = = and the vmware-config-tools.pl runs ….
(well, all but vmci builds … :-/ )