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Linux troubleshooting

AP Computer Science A (Perspectives Chtr - IIT Campus)

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Linux-Troubleshooting-Scenarios

It is always crucial to understand the issue. There should be the right approach or a
step-by-step process to be followed to troubleshoot the issues. Doesn’t matter you are a
Software Developer or DevOps Engineer or an Architect, Unix./Linux is used widely and you
should be aware with the issues and correct approach to resolve it.

Let’s discuss on the few of them :

Issue 1 : Server is not reachable or unable to connect

Approach / Solution :

.
├── Ping the server by Hostname and IP Address
│ ├── Hostname/IP Address is pingable
│ │ ├── Issue might be on the client side as server is reachable
│ ├── Hostname is not pingable but IP Address is pingable
│ │ ├── Could be the DNS issue
│ │ │ ├── check /etc/hosts
│ │ │ ├── check /etc/resolv.conf
│ │ │ ├── check /etc/nsswitch.conf
│ │ │ ├── (Optional) DNS can also be defined in the
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-<interface>
│ ├── Hostname/IP Address both are not pingable
│ │ ├── Check the other server on its same network to see if there is Network side
access issue or other overall something bad
│ │ │ ├── False: Issue is not overall network side but its with that host/server
│ │ │ ├── True: Might be overall network side issue
│ │ ├── Logged into server by Virtual Console, if the server is PoweredON. Check
the uptime
│ │ ├── Check if the server has the IP, and has UP status of Network interface
│ │ │ ├── (Optional) Also check IP related information from
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-<interface>
│ │ ├── Ping the gateway, also check routes
│ │ ├── Check Selinux, Firewall rules
│ │ ├── Check physical cable conn

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Issue 2 : Unable to connect to website or an application

Approach / Solution :

.
├── Ping the server by Hostname and IP Address
│ ├── False: Above Troublshooting Diagram "Server is not reachable or cannot
connect"
│ ├── True: Check the service availabilty by using telnet command with port
│ │ ├── True: Service is running
│ │ ├── False: Service is not reachable or running
│ │ │ ├── Check the service status using systemctl or other command
│ │ │ ├── Check the firewall/selinux
│ │ │ ├── Check the service logs
│ │ │ ├── Check the service configuration
└── ...

Issue 3 : Unable to ssh as root or any other user.

Approach / Solution :

.
├── Ping the server by Hostname and IP Address
│ ├── False: Above Troublshooting Diagram "Server is not reachable or cannot
connect"
│ ├── True: Check the service availabilty by using telnet command with port
│ │ ├── True: Service is running
│ │ │ ├── Issue migh be on client side
│ │ │ ├── User might be disabled, nologin shell, disabled root login and other
configuration
│ │ ├── False: Service is not reachable or running
│ │ │ ├── Check the service status using systemctl or other command
│ │ │ ├── Check the firewall/selinux
│ │ │ ├── Check the service logs
│ │ │ ├── Check the service configuration
└── ...

Issue 4 : Disk Space is full issue or add/extend disk space

Approach / Solution :

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.
├── System Performance degradation detection
│ ├── Application getting slow/unresponsive
│ ├── Commands are not running (For Example: as / disk space is full)
│ ├── Cannot do logging and other etc
├── Analyse the issue
│ ├── df command to find the problematic filesystem space issue
├── Action
│ ├── After finding the specific filesystem, use du command in that filesystem to get
which files/directories are large
│ ├── Compress/remove big files
│ ├── Move the items to another partition/server
│ ├── Check the health status of the disks using badblocks command (For Example:
#badblocks -v /dev/sda)
│ ├── Check which process is IO Bound (using iostat)
│ ├── Create a link to file/dir
├── New disk addition
│ ├── Simple partition
│ │ ├── Add disk to VM
│ │ ├── Check the new disk with df/lsblk command
│ │ ├── fdisk to create partition. Better to have LVM partition
│ │ ├── Create filesytem and mount it
│ │ ├── fstab entry for persistent
│ ├── LVM Partition
│ │ ├── Add disk to VM
│ │ ├── Check the new disk with df/lsblk command
│ │ ├── fdisk to create LVM partition
│ │ ├── PV, VG, LV
│ │ ├── Create filesytem and mount it
│ │ ├── fstab entry for persistent
│ ├── Extend LVM partition
│ │ ├── Add disk, and create LVM partition
│ │ ├── Add LVM partition (PV) in existing VG
│ │ ├── Extend LV and resize filesystem
└── ...

Issue 5 : Filesystem corrupted

Approach / Solution :

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.
├── One of the error that cause the system unable to BOOT UP
├── Check /var/log/messages, dmesg and other log files
├── If we have a badsector logs, we have to run fsck
│ ├── True:
│ │ ├── reboot the system into resuce mode as booting it from CDROM by applying
ISO
│ │ ├── proceed with option 1, which mount the original root filesystem under
/mnt/sysimage
│ │ ├── edit fstab entries or create a new file with the help of blkid and reboot
└── ...

Issue 6 : fstab file missing or bad entry

Approach / Solution :

.
├── One of the error that cause the system unable to BOOT UP
├── Check /var/log/messages, dmesg and other log files
├── If we have a badsector logs, we have to run fsck
│ ├── True:
│ │ ├── reboot the system into resuce mode as booting it from CDROM by applying
ISO
│ │ ├── proceed with option 1, which mount the original root filesystem under
/mnt/sysimage
│ │ ├── edit fstab entries or create a new file with the help of blkid and reboot
└── ...

Issue 7 : Can’t cd to the directory even if user has sudo privileges

Approach / Solution :

.
├── Reasons and Resolution
│ ├── Directory does not exist
│ ├── Pathname conflict: relative vs absolute path
│ ├── Parent directory permission/ownership
│ ├── Doesn't have executable permission on target directory

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│ ├── Hidden directory

└── ...

Issue 8 : Can’t Create Links

Approach / Solution :

.
├── Reasons and Resolution
│ ├── Target directory/File does not exist
│ ├── Pathname conflict: relative vs absolute path - (should be complete path)
│ ├── Parent directory permission/ownership
│ ├── Target file permission/ownership - (as there should be read permission)
│ ├── Hidden directory/file
└── ...

Issue 9 : Running Out of Memory

Approach / Solution :

.
├── Types
│ ├── Cache (L1, L2, L3)
│ ├── RAM
│ │ ├── Usage
│ │ │ ├── #free -h
│ │ │ │ ├── Total (Total assigned memory)
│ │ │ │ ├── Used (Total actual used memory)
│ │ │ │ ├── Free (Actual free memory)
│ │ │ │ ├── Shared (Shared Memory)
│ │ │ │ ├── Buff/Cache (Pages cache memory)
│ │ │ │ ├── Available (Memory can be freed)
│ │ │ ├── /proc/meminfo
│ │ │ │ ├── file active
│ │ │ │ ├── file inactive
│ │ │ │ ├── anon active
│ │ │ │ ├── anon inactive
│ ├── Swap (Virtual Memory)
├── Resolution

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│ ├── Identify the processes that are using high memory using top, htop, ps etc.
│ ├── Check the OOM in logs and also check if there is a memory commitment in
sysctl.conf
│ ├── Kill or restart the process/service
│ ├── prioritize the process using nice
│ ├── Add/Extend the swap space
│ ├── Add more physical more RAM
└── ...

Issue 10 : Add/ Extend the Swap Space

Approach / Solution :

.
├── Due to running out of memory, we would need to add more swap space
│ ├── Create a file with #dd, as it will reserve the blocks of disk for swap file
│ ├── Set permission 600 and give root ownership
│ ├── #mkswap
│ ├── Now Turned swap on #swapon
│ ├── fstab entry for persistent
└── ...

Issue 11 : Unable to Run Certain Commands

Approach / Solution :

.
├── Troubleshooting and Resolution
│ ├── command
│ │ ├── Could be the system related command which non root user does not have
the access
│ │ ├── Could be the user defined script/command
│ ├── Troubleshooting
│ │ ├── permission/ownership of the command/script
│ │ ├── sudo permission
│ │ ├── absolute/relative path of command/script
│ │ ├── not defined in user $PATH variable
│ │ ├── command is not installed

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│ │ ├── command library is missing or deleted

└── ...

Issue 12 : System Unexpectedly reboot and process restart ?

Approach / Solution :

.
├── Troubleshooting and Resolution
│ ├── System reboot/crash reasons
│ │ ├── CPU stress
│ │ ├── RAM stress
│ │ ├── Kernel fault
│ │ ├── Hardware fault
│ ├── Process restart
│ │ ├── System reboot
│ │ ├── Restart itself
│ │ ├── Watchdog application
│ │ │ ├── To prevent high stress on system resources
│ │ │ ├── If application causing stress, so it will restart or terminate
│ ├── Troubleshooting
│ │ ├── After logged in, check the status by using commands like uptime, top,
dmesg, journalctl, iostat -xz 1
│ │ ├── syslog.log, boot.log, dmesg, messages.log etc
│ │ ├── custom log path of applicatoin
│ │ ├── if not completely accessible, so take the virutal console like from ILO,
IDRAC etc
│ │ ├── open a case and reach out a vendor
└── ...

Issue 13 : Unable to get IP Address

Approach / Solution :

.
├── IP Assignment Methods
│ ├── DHCP
│ │ ├── Fixed Allocation

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│ │ ├── Dynamic Allocation

│ ├── Static
├── Troubleshooting
│ ├── check network setting from virtualization environment like VMware, VirtualBox
or etc
│ ├── check the IP address is assigned or not
│ ├── check the NIC status from host side using #lspci, #nmcli etc
│ ├── restart network service
└── ...

Issue 14 : Backup and Restore File Permissions in Linux

Approach / Solutions :

.
├── Troubleshooting
│ ├── The best option is to create the ACL file of Dir/Files before changing the
permissions in bulk
│ │ ├── Create the acl file before changing the permission (or backup the file
permission): ~$ getfacl -R <dir> > permissions.acl
│ │ ├── Restore File Permissions: ~$ setfacl --restore=permissions.acl
│ ├── Restore from the VM Snapshot (But not always a good option for production)
│ ├── Rebuild the VM (this option is safe for future)
└── ...

Useful Tip Related Disk Partition :

.
├── Tips
│ ├── After adding/attaching a new disk to a VM, we can get its status from lsblk
command by doing ~$echo 1 > /sys/block/sda/device/rescan
│ ├── If we increase disk size of existing disk than the additional space get appended
to the existing disk without affecting the already existed FileSystem and Partition
│ ├── We can also recreate the filesystem on block device as it will automatically
format the old one
│ ├── If we have a disk(with created partition/FS) we can share the .vmdk to other
VM. So after mounting we would have a same data as it was on previous one.
└── ...

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