OT: Server puts in zombie mode.

[Eduardo Casarero]

Hi, i've a rare situation on some servers, they just get zombie. After
all i've researched i think it's a HD hang out or something in storage
because i couldnt find any trace in the logs. The failure seems to be
random and the server in zombie mode appears to be online answering
ping and if you telnet ssh port you get connected but after you
connect the connection is lost (as if the servers tries to read
something from HD).

Also the servers that eventually crash have years of heavy load
processing emails (this backups my theory of HD failure). After
rebooting the server everything seems to be ok.

The SO is slackware and some servers are slackware 10.2 or 12.1 so i
think is not a SO bug, also they have different versions of
MailScanner/SA/clamd (because they have years working and the upgrade
process is not masive. Usually the zombie servers has SATA disk (that
also backups my theory)

Does anyone have any idea of how can i get a log or something to
demostrate this? or any other test to get better/or another conclusion
or cause?

Any help would be really appreciated.

Thanks eduardo.