Server at School Keeps Crashing

Veljo

Veljo

Mac Enthusiast
This past week my school has had really bad problems with our server. The server is a Powermac G4 and it runs all the computers in the entire school. So I'm talking 1200 users, Internet access for all, 150+ computers, etc. It crashes at least once a month, and I was wondering what's wrong.

At the moment nothing works, all our Macs at school are off while they try to fix it. Could it be that it is getting such a big overload? Because nobody can figure out what's wrong. If they had a server for each computer lab would this rectify the problem? The server is running Mac OS X Server while the other computers in the school are using Mac OS 9.1/9.2. Could this be the problem? I'm only a student, but I'm really curious to know what's going on.
 
What do you do when your server goes down??? I would need more Information to help you fix this!:eek: :cool: :confused: :confused: :)
 
We don't know. That's the problem.

Today we logged in one at a time and it worked fine. When we tried to use the Internet the two arrows next to the Apple menu stayed up and the whole school froze. The server took 15 minutes to unlock itself.

They suspect that it might be an older computer lab in the school but they don't know.
 
First off - Are you running the latest version of OS X Server (not the original release, but the one from 2000, but the new release based upon OS X?)

Also, if you have that many people on your system, your best bet would be to call Apple. If you have a fairly recent version of OS X Server, you should be covered with tech support.

If not, here's what I would try.

Back up all the files on the server. Wipe the HD clean. Reinstall the system, reapply all the updates. Then try to bring on users to the system a few at a time, and see if they can bring it down.

I have read about some OS 9 clients ability to crash an OS X server. You may want to search MacFixIt to see what the details are.

I know with 1200 users that could be a pain, but really it's the only way to determine what the cause is.
 
take a close look into the server logs, you should be able to track down the reason why the server crashes...btw, what do you mean with crashing? Do the different server deamons shut down or do you get a kernel panic???
 
What do i mean when i say the server crashes? well all the computers in the school freeze and the server has to be restarted and stuff. i dont know much more than what i've said
 
Wow, sorry for asking! There is a rather big difference if the server gets a Kernel parnic or just shuts down several running processes...
 
MacOS X Server existed before the consumer OS X and in the beginning, didn't have Aqua...IIRC.....
 
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