[luau] locking server

[R. Scott Belford]

Warren mentioned an issue familiar to me when he brought up some 
troubles that he was having with a server locking down.  He and Ray have 
figured it to be a hardware problem.  I have experienced something 
familiar, and I am wondering what conditions can lead to a server lock 
up with no hints in the logs and why it definitely is a hardware problem.

In my scenario, I have had a server lock up after about 5 days of hard 
use.  It has happened twice.  Both times I was using Redhat's 7.2 
Enterprise kernel (2.4.9-34enterprise).  I blamed it on a default kernel 
setting that I did not understand.  I changed to the stock 2.4.9-34smp 
kernel with Rhat 7.2.  After about 30 days, the same lockup.  By lockup 
I mean that both remote and local terminal sessions are frozen.  
Pressing ctrl + alt + del will not reboot.  My only hint is a series of 
"failed to set personality on (some pid #)" on the screen.  An ugly 
power down is the only "fix."

Upon reboot, there are no hints in the logs.  This is to say, there are 
no hints in the var/log directory.  Perhaps I could look somewhere 
else.  As far as the logs and server are concerned, everything is just 
hunky-dorry.  Here is what I wonder:

What can cause this?  Is the machine that is locking up on Warren and 
Ray staying up for as many days as mine?  Can hardware problems take 30 
days to manifest themselves?

I have been told that /proc/sys/fs/file-max must be set high enough to 
handle one's active files.  If this number is reached, does  a server 
lock?  Is there a way to check how many files are open?

Is there another software or kernel setting that can lead to a lock 
down, say, max inodes or something?

If you have any suggestions or insights or experiences that you can 
share, I would be most gracious.

scott