How to restart pic-ser when it is not responding
August 3, 2005


The pic-ser server may reach a state where it is not responding to login requests (the login request times out).  Use this procedure to diagnose and restart the server.

Setup
=====

* Find your ser and serctl paths - probably in /usr/sbin but installations vary

  If in /usr/sbin set PATH=$PATH:/usr/sbin, otherwise set PATH to add the correct path

* Find your log file - probably /etc/ser/ser.log or /var/log/messages, but installations    vary

  Read through the log file and find out what was happening and what errors were logged     when it stopped responding.  Save the log file for later perusal if necessary.


Check status to see if it is not responding globally
====================================================

* serctl ps - if it returns nothing, or terminates, you have a problem

* serctl moni - if it returns "[cycle #: 1; if constant make sure server lives and fifo     is on]" and the cycle number never changes (stays constant), you have a problem.

* ps -ef | grep /ser - to find out if ser processes are running

Stop ser
========

* On RedHat, use one of these commands to stop it so you can restart it:

    /etc/rc.d/init.d/ser stop
    serctl stop
    service ser stop

* If ser is running but not responding to stop commands, kill the processes:

  sudo killall ser
  sudo killall -9 ser


Restart ser
===========

* To restart it (and your installation directory is /usr/sbin and log file directory /etc/ser):

  nohup sudo /usr/sbin/ser -f /etc/ser/ser.cfg > /etc/ser/ser.log 2>&1 &