Am using SuSE 10.1 on one of my x86_64 boxes.
Have faced this problem 5 times till now.
The server comes up fine and runs smooth too. After a span of 1 day or so, i find processes connecting to the server remotely getting stuck up.
Investigating further, i find that i am not able to login to the server using ssh from any of the other boxes in our network. or outside. Though the server is up.

Can some one clear me as to is this a problem with the ssh daemon itself, such that the sshd goes down on its own due to some reasons. Or can there be other issues as well.
Also if the problem is ssh, are there any utilities with the help of which i can find out the performance of ssh running on this server. One which can let me know whether the sshd really goes down or how?
Also can i keep an eye on the servers load wothout logging in ? are there any utilities for this ?



Thanks.

When you try to log into the server using sshd does it hang after the "Password:" prompt? or is the port completely closed?

Are any of the other services active? do they experience any problems when ssh does?

When i try to login at that time, i don't get the login prompt. I think the port closes completely.
Yes, this does affect other services such as rsync and scp from another server to this one.

Rather than rebooting it, you may want to open a ticket with the DC, and have a tech console into the server and see what is going on.

Another idea would be to use a snapshot script, to gather some information on the server. Then when it hangs the process will still be running, and hopefully logging! After the server is rebooted the logs may contain some useful information.