How to know why server keeps restarting?

You can use the following 2 commands (who & last) to find out the last time the system was rebooted and also messages about previous shutdown or runlevel changes.

Last time system booted?

For this you can use the who command. Specifically with the -b switch.

$ who -b
         system boot  2013-08-01 17:56

This says the last time the system was booted was 2013-08-01.

Past reboots

If you're interested in seeing a more extensive list of previous reboots you can use the last command.

$ last reboot | less
reboot   system boot  2.6.35.14-106.fc Thu Aug  1 17:56 - 02:03 (7+08:06)   
reboot   system boot  2.6.35.14-106.fc Thu Aug  1 09:41 - 17:55  (08:14)    
reboot   system boot  2.6.35.14-106.fc Thu Jul 25 15:24 - 17:55 (7+02:31)   
reboot   system boot  2.6.35.14-106.fc Thu Jul 18 18:05 - 15:23 (6+21:17)   
...

Past system shutdowns & runlevel changes?

You can use the last command for this too. You'll need to use the -x switch.

$ last -x | less
saml     pts/7        :pts/6:S.0       Sat Aug  3 21:30 - 21:30  (00:00)    
saml     pts/6        :0.0             Sat Aug  3 21:29 - 21:30  (00:01)    
saml     pts/4        :0.0             Fri Aug  2 21:49 - 22:16 (2+00:26)   
saml     pts/2        :0.0             Fri Aug  2 13:30 - 22:16 (2+08:45)   
saml     pts/1        :0.0             Fri Aug  2 13:05   still logged in   
saml     pts/0        :0.0             Fri Aug  2 12:37   still logged in   
saml     pts/0        :0.0             Fri Aug  2 12:35 - 12:37  (00:02)    
saml     pts/0        :0.0             Thu Aug  1 17:58 - 12:35  (18:36)    
saml     tty1         :0               Thu Aug  1 17:56   still logged in   
runlevel (to lvl 5)   2.6.35.14-106.fc Thu Aug  1 17:56 - 02:04 (7+08:08)   
reboot   system boot  2.6.35.14-106.fc Thu Aug  1 17:56 - 02:04 (7+08:08)   
shutdown system down  2.6.35.14-106.fc Thu Aug  1 17:55 - 17:56  (00:00)    
runlevel (to lvl 6)   2.6.35.14-106.fc Thu Aug  1 17:55 - 17:55  (00:00)    
saml     tty2                          Thu Aug  1 17:54 - down   (00:01)    
root     tty2                          Thu Aug  1 17:53 - 17:54  (00:00)    
...

References


/var/log/messages

That is the main log file you should check for messages related to this. Additionally either /var/log/syslog (Ubuntu) or /var/log/secure (CentOS)

To find out when your server was last rebooted just type uptime to see how long it has been up.

Tags:

Linux

Uptime

Recent Posts