Server Keeps Crashing

[myplanet]

Hello,

I'm having a problem with a server running Plesk 8. Every 6 - 12 hours it seems to be crashing.... all services stop although I can ping the IP address. Reboot and everything comes back up.

Looked in Plesk yesterday, only half the memory was being used and the swap usage was VERY high. But my hosting provider checked the memory and said it was fine.

My hosting provider will be performing a hardware diagnostic tomorrow morning, but I'd like to do some troubleshooting on my end to check for software issues.

Where do I begin. I'm a bit of a newbie. I'd guess I'm supposed to check the server logs... but where?

ps - I'm comfortable logging in with SSH, using nano, etc. if that helps.

Cheers. Jason

 

[phoenixisp]

The first place you might look is /var/logs/messages

 

[myplanet]

I see quite a few attempts from IP address to login as root (failed attempts). They are clustered around the time the server is crashing. So maybe that's the problem.

Hosting provider is adding a script designed to limit attempts to x3. We'll see if that helps.

Thanks!

 

[phoenixisp]

I'm not sure what OS you have, but try this. Go to /etc/ssh/sshd_conf and look for the line

#PermitRootLogin yes

And change it to (don't gorget to uncomment):

PermitRootLogin no

This will prevent ANY root logins from SSH