ls,apt,find: segmentation fault

[Victor Munoz <vmunoz@macul.ciencias.uchile.cl>]

Hello.

I seem to be in serious trouble.

I have a woody server I've accessed remotely without much problem during a
couple of years. Last time was yesterday. Today, however, an rsync
gave me the following error:

rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (8 bytes read so far)
rsync error: error in rsync protocol data stream (code 12) at io.c(150)

I can ping or ssh it, no problem, though ocassionally ssh logs me in, and
closes my session immeadiately. Some commands (top, ps) hang my prompt,
and others (apt-get, apt-cache) return a segmentation fault. Other behave
not consistently: ls -ltr does not sort files as expected, ls in my home dir
gives no problem, but ls /etc/apt gives a segmentation fault.

Any help trying to diagnose the problem is welcome. I feel I will have to
reinstall from scratch, but I would like to understand.

Entries in wtmp only show logins by myself, though I see in /var/log/syslog
messages like 'Unable to handle kernel paging request', as this:

Apr  7 02:21:50 aristoteles kernel: Process ls (pid: 7578, stackpage=c1325000)
Apr  7 02:21:50 aristoteles kernel: Stack: c1325f74 00000000 c1325fa4
c0e6fc10 c1115468 c32c8000 2a6885a6 0000000c 
Apr  7 02:21:50 aristoteles kernel:        c0138322 c0c33820 c1325f74
c1325f74 c0138987 c0c33820 c1325f74 00000000 
Apr  7 02:21:50 aristoteles kernel:        c32c8000 00000000 c1325fa4
00000008 c013813e 00000008 c32c800c 00000000 
Apr  7 02:21:50 aristoteles kernel: Call Trace: [cached_lookup+14/80]
[link_path_walk+1167/1720] [getname+94/156] [path_walk+26/28]
[__user_walk+53/80] 
Apr  7 02:21:50 aristoteles kernel:    [sys_lstat64+25/112]
[sys_brk+201/208] [system_call+51/56] 
Apr  7 02:21:50 aristoteles kernel: 
Apr  7 02:21:50 aristoteles kernel: Code: 8b 6d 00 8b 54 24 18 39 53 44 75
74 8b 44 24 24 39 43 0c 75 
Apr  7 02:21:53 aristoteles kernel:  <1>Unable to handle kernel paging
request at virtual address 3120360a
Apr  7 02:21:53 aristoteles kernel:  printing eip:
Apr  7 02:21:53 aristoteles kernel: c0140518
Apr  7 02:21:53 aristoteles kernel: *pde = 00000000
Apr  7 02:21:53 aristoteles kernel: Oops: 0000
Apr  7 02:21:53 aristoteles kernel: CPU:    0
Apr  7 02:21:53 aristoteles kernel: EIP:    0010:[d_lookup+92/244]    Not
tainted
Apr  7 02:21:53 aristoteles kernel: EFLAGS: 00010203
Apr  7 02:21:53 aristoteles kernel: eax: c1115468   ebx: 312035fa   ecx:
0000000d   edx: 2a6885a6
Apr  7 02:21:53 aristoteles kernel: esi: 00000000   edi: c1325fa4   ebp:
3120360a   esp: c1325f14
Apr  7 02:21:53 aristoteles kernel: ds: 0018   es: 0018   ss: 0018

Could it be the cause or a symptom?

Any help appreciated. Regards,

    	 	      	      			    Victor