SELinux insanity

[Jay Nugent]

Greetings,

On Tue, 15 Dec 2020, Matthew Carpenter wrote:

> On Tuesday, December 15, 2020 12:05:04 AM EST Jay Nugent via Linux-users
> wrote:
>> P.S.  And to put us more on-topic....  Anyone experience a situation where
>>        an Ubuntu machine will run just perfectly for 1 to 3 days, then
>>        suddenly the "Load Average" jumps up to 4.xx or 5.xx and upwards of
>>        8.xx???  There is nothing running on the box, it is not attached to
>>        the Internet, and has no users.  DMESG shows that the four CPU's
>>        suddenly go idle for 23 or more seconds and then magically return to
>>        processing after tens of seconds.  The ONLY way to get the Load
>>        Average down is to reboot.  Any ideas???
>
> That's odd.  What can you tell us about the hardware?  How old, what style/
> vendor/etc...

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071P3FJKV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

    MicroPC, J1900, quad core 2.0 GHz Intel Celeron, 8 Gigs RAM, 128 Gigs 
SDD disk, 4 RS-232, 4 USB, built-in Soundcard, built-in WiFi, 2 10/100 
Ethernet ports.

    Nice thing is that it runs on only 15 watts (12.0 volts D.C.) and with 
a Buck/Boost regulator will run nicely on my whole-house 12 VDC Solar 
power system.  A nice replacement to the 19" rack mounted POWER HUNGRY 
server I've been running the past 10 years.

    Right now it is running on the provided wall-wart until I get 
everything debugged.


> What's the software build-out on the box?  You say "nothing" but what does
> "nothing" mean?
>

    1) Started out with 14.04 LTS Ubunto... CPU issue appeared...

    2) Upgraded to 16.04 LTS Ubunto...  Things ran *better* but the CPU
       IDLE issue would crop up after a couple days.

    3) Upgraded to Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (GNU/Linux 5.4.0-58-generic x86_64)
       earlier this evening.  Waiting to see if the CPU IDLE issue rears
       its ugly head.  That may take 3 or 4 days...



> Is this a VM?  Is it a game machine, desktop, local server, dummy box?

    Not running as a VM.  Not a game machine.  It is just burning in right 
now before I turn in into a server (DNS, Sendmail, Apache2).


    Wrote the following cronjob that writes pertinent information out to a 
text file every 10 minutes:

#
dmesg | tail -10 >> /root/temp-load.txt ;
sensors | grep Core >> /root/temp-load.txt ;
cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "cpu MHz" >> /root/temp-load.txt ;
netstat -t >> /root/temp-load.txt ;
uptime >> /root/temp-load.txt ; echo "----------------------------------------" >> /root/temp-load.txt
#


    After generally 3 days of running the LOAD AVERAGE will suddenly jump 
up high and keyboard response gets really sluggish.  As you can see below, 
the Load Average is pretty normal, then in the next sample DMESG reports 
CPUIDLE errors and the Load Average jumps way up...and stays there.


  13:00:01 up 3 days, 17:28,  2 users,  load average: 0.01, 0.02, 0.00
----------------------------------------
[322833.697550] ba cf f7 53 e3 a5 9b c4 20 48 89
[322833.697564]  cpuidle_enter+0x17/0x20
[322833.697565] d8 48 c1 fb
[322833.697574]  call_cpuidle+0x23/0x40
[322833.697575] 3f
[322833.697582]  do_idle+0x18c/0x1f0
[322833.697587]  cpu_startup_entry+0x73/0x80
[322833.697593]  start_secondary+0x1ab/0x200
[322833.697599]  secondary_startup_64+0xa5/0xb0
[322833.697603] Code: 65 8b 3d 4d 4d c0 6c e8 28 7c 8b ff 48 89 c3 0f 1f 
44 00 00 31 ff e8 79 d7 8c ff 45 84 ff 0f 85 e4 01 00 00 fb 66 0f 1f 44 00 
00 <48> 2b 5d d0 48 ba cf f7 53 e3 a5 9b c4 20 48 89 d8 48 c1 fb 3f
Core 0:       +35.0°C  (high = +105.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 1:       +35.0°C  (high = +105.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 2:       +33.0°C  (high = +105.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 3:       +33.0°C  (high = +105.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
cpu MHz         : 1332.957
cpu MHz         : 1332.836
cpu MHz         : 1332.446
cpu MHz         : 1332.776
Active Internet connections (w/o servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State
tcp        0      0 unknown40623114b60c:ssh unknownb827ebe058:41588 ESTABLISHED
  13:10:13 up 3 days, 17:38,  2 users,  load average: 4.85, 4.15, 2.06
----------------------------------------


    I'm hoping that the upgreade to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS will fix the problem.

    Thanks!
       --- Jay