-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi Dotan - Try ps -Af instead and look at the last few processes on the list. When top shows high wait %, in my experience this is because your disk is thrashing. This can happen in FC because of anacron, which runs cronjobs that should have executed while your machine was turned off. It does this some time after your machine is switched back on, an hour IIRC. Therefore look at the last few processes in ps -Af and see if they look like the kind of thing anacron would run (slocate, prelink, etc). - -Andy

On 7/2/05, Alexander Dalloz <ad+lists(a)uni-x.org&gt; wrote: Thanks, Alex. I've since had to restart the machine twice. After the first time I ran ps axuwwww | grep Z. At that time I had only one zombie show up in top: USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND root 3571 0.0 0.0 0 0 tty4 Z< 16:37 0:00 [X] <defunct> 500 3802 0.0 0.0 364 108 tty6 R+ 16:45 0:00 grep Z As soon as the machine slows down again, I'll run top, and in the event of zombies, I'll run ps. I don't think that the problem is anacron, as Andy suggested, as the machine was up all night. I ussually don't turn the computer off at night. Dotan Cohen http://lyricslist.com/lyrics/artist_albums/137/crosby_stills_and_nash.php Crosby, Stills And Nash Song Lyrics

On 7/2/05, Alexander Dalloz <ad+lists(a)uni-x.org&gt; wrote: Thank you for your advise. I do not seem to have a command smartctl. Even man smartctl gives me nothing. I went googling and came to the comclusion that I simply have to install it, but I thought that I'd ask here first. Without a man page I don't want to go messing things up. If I do need to install it, to where should it be installed? /usr/bin? Thanks. Dotan Cohen http://lyricslist.com/lyrics/artist_albums/395/papa_roach.php Papa Roach Song Lyrics

On 7/3/05, Alexander Dalloz <ad+lists(a)uni-x.org&gt; wrote: Alex, I think I've gone completely back to newbie-land. I don't know where to continue from here with smart. I think that I remember a post where there was mention of another disk checking utility but STFA didn't help much- probably because I don't remember the command name! So I googled for linux commands, but pages like http://www.ss64.com/bash/ didn't have a command for checking to disks. Also, there was still no man for smart: [root@localhost ~]# smartctl -t long /dev/hdb smartctl version 5.33 [i386-redhat-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-4 Bruce Allen Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ SMART support is: Unavailable - Packet Interface Devices [this device: CD/DVD] don't support ATA SMART A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more '-T permissive' options. [root@localhost ~]# man smart No manual entry for smart [root@localhost ~]# Dotan Cohen http://lyricslist.com/lyrics/artist_albums/11/a-ha.php A-Ha Song Lyrics

On 7/4/05, Alexander Dalloz <ad+lists(a)uni-x.org&gt; wrote: I didn't realize that was the problem. I should have know that my drive is hda- it's the only one in there! But it appears to not be supported: [root@localhost ~]# smartctl -t long /dev/hda smartctl version 5.33 [i386-redhat-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-4 B ruce Allen Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ SMART Disabled. Use option -s with argument 'on' to enable it. [root@localhost ~]# smartctl -s on long /dev/hda smartctl version 5.33 [i386-redhat-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-4 B ruce Allen Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ ERROR: smartctl takes ONE device name as the final command-line argu ment. You have provided 2 device names: long /dev/hda Use smartctl -h to get a usage summary [root@localhost ~]# smartctl -s on /dev/hda smartctl version 5.33 [i386-redhat-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-4 B ruce Allen Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ === START OF ENABLE/DISABLE COMMANDS SECTION === SMART Enabled. [root@localhost ~]# smartctl -a /dev/hda smartctl version 5.33 [i386-redhat-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-4 B ruce Allen Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Device Model: ST320413A Serial Number: 6ED3SE0G Firmware Version: 3.40 User Capacity: 20,020,396,032 bytes Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show] ATA Version is: 5 ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicate d Local Time is: Mon Jul 4 02:01:32 2005 IDT SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Enabled === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED General SMART Values: Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection acti vity was completed without error. Auto Offline Data Collection : Enabled. Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routi ne completed without error or no self-tes t has ever been run. Total time to complete Offline data collection: ( 422) seconds. Offline data collection capabilities: (0x1b) SMART execute Offline immedi ate. Auto Offline data collection on/off support. Suspend Offline collection u pon new command. Offline surface scan support ed. Self-test supported. No Conveyance Self-test supp orted. No Selective Self-test suppo rted. SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before ente ring power-saving mode. Supports SMART auto save tim er. Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported. No General Purpose Logging s upport. Short self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 1) minutes. Extended self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 23) minutes. SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10 Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UP DATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000e 083 061 025 Old_age Al ways - 170108439 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0002 080 078 000 Old_age Al ways - 0 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Al ways - 501 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0032 100 100 036 Old_age Al ways - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000e 081 060 030 Old_age Al ways - 4413666102 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 093 093 000 Old_age Al ways - 6611 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0012 100 099 097 Old_age Al ways - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Al ways - 878 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 039 052 000 Old_age Al ways - 39 195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 082 070 000 Old_age Al ways - 127230975 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Al ways - 0 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 100 100 000 Old_age Of fline - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Al ways - 0 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0000 100 100 000 Old_age Of fline - 0 202 TA_Increase_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Al ways - 0 SMART Error Log Version: 1 No Errors Logged SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1 No self-tests have been logged. [To run self-tests, use: smartctl - t] Device does not support Selective Self Tests/Logging [root@localhost ~]# use: smartctl -t /dev/hda -bash: use:: command not found [root@localhost ~]# man smartctl Formatting page, please wait... I remember a postnot long ago (a month, maybe) where someone posted the output of a disk check and you told him that there was reason to worry. You then wrote back and mentioned that you checked the man for that particular program and found that there was in fact no real reason to worry. I can't find that post! I don't think that the program was smart, because I would have remembered that name... Dotan http://lyricslist.com/lyrics/artist_albums/11/a-ha.php A-Ha Song Lyrics

At 5:43 PM +0300 7/3/05, Dotan Cohen wrote: ... To find out such things: $ yum provides smartctl On my FC3 system it shows that it is in kernel-utils. See where it is (or would be) on your system. Then: $ su - # yum install <pkg> /usr/sbin, but don't do it by hand. ____________________________________________________________________ TonyN.:' <mailto:tonynelson@georgeanelson.com> ' <http://www.georgeanelson.com/>