nixCraft

In my LogWatch I have been getting this for a month or two:
--------------------- Kernel Begin ------------------------


WARNING: General Protection Faults in these executables
sed : 1 Time(s)

---------------------- Kernel End -------------------------

In checking my logs I see that the time that it happens is intermittent. Some days i don't get this message; other days it can vary from 1 to 4 times. I'm not knowingly using SED. I suspect some program is calling it. The server seems to be operating fine otherwise.

My System is Fedora - 4, operating as a server. I have 2 sites on it using Apache, PHP, mySQL

I've searched the web but can't find anything on this.
Any ideas on what is causing this or how to tracke it down to it's source?


Usagi

LogWatch usually collects data from /var/log/messages and other files. You can run quick grep on /var/log/messages to find out more information about this program:

Let me know what is the output of above command...

Generally, PHP or Apache will not call sed directly.

So what can call the sed…
a) If you have control panel software that may call the sed
b) Your own PHP script may call the sed.
c) Your own shell script installed as a cron job

but let us find out grep output

See general protection fault means the kernel tried executing code (in your case sed command) which was not noted as "executable". This happens if the kernel jumps to bogus location. It can be caused by many factors.

My friend had same problem on Debian Linux box. After updating sed version his problem vanished (no more error reported by LogWatch). He was getting 40-50 errors

May be you should try to update version of sed as well as system software. Also check your RAM memory is fine.

I had GPF on one my Linux box. After increasing RAM from 1GiG to 2GiG my problem was solved.

Running an application with insufficient resources can also cause this problem. Since you are getting this error sometimes, it is better to note down system load and see on that day or time you are getting the same error.

hope this helps

__________________

Jun 18 04:15:01 prose-n-poetry kernel: sed[6042] general protection rip:32c4704191 rsp:7fffffec5040 error:0
Jun 18 04:20:04 prose-n-poetry kernel: sed[6445] general protection rip:32c4704191 rsp:7ffffff14b60 error:0
Jun 18 05:35:04 prose-n-poetry kernel: sed[20769] general protection rip:32c4704191 rsp:7fffff81ed40 error:0
Jun 18 06:50:02 prose-n-poetry kernel: sed[24886] general protection rip:32c4704191 rsp:7fffffbf5240 error:0
Jun 18 06:50:03 prose-n-poetry kernel: sed[24978] general protection rip:32c4704191 rsp:7fffffc2fbf0 error:0
Jun 18 11:20:03 prose-n-poetry kernel: sed[8621] general protection rip:32c4704191 rsp:7fffff885cc0 error:0
...

Jun 20 01:55:03 prose-n-poetry kernel: sed[32120] general protection rip:32c4704191 rsp:7fffff840980 error:0
Jun 20 14:37:12 prose-n-poetry su(pam_unix)[14165]: session closed for user root
Jun 20 17:50:02 prose-n-poetry kernel: sed[26764] general protection rip:32c4704191 rsp:7fffffbb1db0 error:0
Jun 20 21:00:01 prose-n-poetry kernel: sed[6355] general protection rip:32c4704191 rsp:7fffff988080 error:0
Jun 20 22:55:03 prose-n-poetry kernel: sed[13884] general protection rip:32c4704191 rsp:7fffffeb5100 error:0
...

Jun 21 09:45:04 prose-n-poetry kernel: sed[21407] general protection rip:32c4704191 rsp:7ffffff90b60 error:0
...
Jun 22 06:05:03 prose-n-poetry kernel: sed[9299] general protection rip:32c4704191 rsp:7fffffbc6d00 error:0
Jun 22 06:05:04 prose-n-poetry kernel: sed[9365] general protection rip:32c4704191 rsp:7fffffce3630 error:0


In the spaces indicated by ... the following appear from 1 to many times:

Jun 22 00:00:21 prose-n-poetry su(pam_unix)[17815]: session closed for user sailormoonfansubs
Jun 22 00:00:24 prose-n-poetry su(pam_unix)[17814]: session closed for user prosenpoetry

I believe those -su lines are due to some calls in my PHP programs.

I also have YUM set on auto update. It should be updating all programs daily.

Are you using AMD (Opteron) h/w?

Try out this script memtest.sh :
http://people.redhat.com/dledford/memtest.html

D - Basic Dedicated Server:
# Processor AMD Sempron 2200+
Memory
# 512 MB DDR
Hard Disk
# 40GB IDE

I believe it's a 64 bit processor.

Fedora-4 doesn't include bash2 which that script requires. However a memory testing script might be a good idea.

Usagi

You can try out any one of the following binary memory testers:

==> memtest86 - A thorough real-mode memory tester
==> memtest86+ - thorough real-mode memory tester
==> memtester - A utility for testing the memory subsystem

I had problem with AMD 64 with Suse box. Suse provided us some patch for kernel. Then we recompile the kernel to patch up this issue.

First check out memory, if problem is not coming too many times, you can use system w/o patch as patch need to recompile the kernel.