Server suddenly went offline, no response to ping... what happened?

My dedicated CMM server was humming along just fine... then it went dark. No response to ping, no SSH, nothing. Contacted Hivelocity support chat (which is awesome, by the way) and they rebooted the server via console.

---

It rebooted and came back to life as normal, but...

Server monitoring and APM shows no indications of any problems. No unusual bandwidth usage. Nothing odd in the logs I checked.

What in the world happened? How can I even begin to troubleshoot this to ensure it won't happen again?

 

Yeah, it was offline for everyone (got lots of reports from users), including the Hivelocity support staff in the data center, so not a network issue.

I do know the exact time, 21:52 UTC.

In the messages log, I just see this. I guess the repeating "^@" indicates a reboot? Nothing unusual before it, just firewall block entries.

Code (Text):

^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@
Sep  1 22:41:11 hv kernel: microcode: microcode updated early to revision 0xcc, date = 2019-04-01
Sep  1 22:41:11 hv kernel: Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
Sep  1 22:41:11 hv kernel: Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
Sep  1 22:41:11 hv kernel: Initializing cgroup subsys cpuacct
Sep  1 22:41:11 hv kernel: Linux version 3.10.0-957.27.2.el7.x86_64 (mockbuild@kbuilder.bsys.centos.org) (gcc version 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-36) (GCC) ) #1 SMP Mon Jul 29 17:46:05 UTC 2019
Sep  1 22:41:11 hv kernel: Command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.10.0-957.27.2.el7.x86_64 root=/dev/mapper/vg1-root ro crashkernel=auto rd.lvm.lv=vg1/root rd.lvm.lv=vg1/swap rhgb quiet LANG=en_US.UTF-8

journalctl only seems to store info since the reboot, so I can't find any clues about what might have happened when it crashed:

Code (Text):

$ journalctl --list-boots
 0 617227989cd64655b2543a4908c26eb0 Sun 2019-09-01 22:41:11 UTC—Mon 2019-09-02 19:26:11 UTC

Is that normal or can/should I configure that to save more info about previous boots?

Yeah, it's just over a year old... hopefully too young for any hardware issues.

 

Thanks for the suggestion! I do have a /var/crash directory but it's empty, so I'm guessing kdump is not installed or configured. I will look into it for sure.