I don’t know what happened, but my Ubuntu Linux server crashed hard the other night. And when I brought it back, the rest of the network couldn’t see it. I could ping my gateway (router), and the server was pulling an IP address over DHCP, and the rest of the world had connectivity to it, but I couldn’t ping anything else on the network. And my Windows machines couldn’t connect to it.
I tried changing network cables and changing ports because that helped once in the past, but not this time. Finally, I found a command.
mii-tool -r
And that worked! The command forces the network card to renegotiate duplex. Suddenly I could ping, and I could connect.
Then I found I had a database corruption issue with WordPress. Scary. But since the screen indicated MySQL had been what died hard, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
WordPress stores its MySQL database name and password in wp-config.php. I copied down that password (mine was obnoxious) and entered the following from from my SSH connection:
mysqlcheck -h localhost -u wordpress -p --repair --extended wordpress
It prompted me to enter the password. Copy and paste saves the day.
It took a little while, but fixed all the issues, and brought the site back to life.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.