How might I detect memory errors if I do not have root or physical access to a Linux system?

Question

The background to my question is as follows. I currently rent a virtual private server from a major hosting company, which I use to run a minecraft server. I have a suspicion that there may be bad ram on the host that I'm running from due to the fact that the game's map files keep corrupting. Given that the process I use to operate the server has the game's map files stored in ramdisk, this is why I suspect that there may be a memory error.

So, my question is, if one does not have root on a system, and does not have physical access to the system, what indications or troubleshooting steps might I use to prove/disprove that the problem is bad ram on the host system?

Answer 1

As long as you don't have root, you can't test all of the memory.

There are several programs out there for testing the memory, but I suspect most or all of them require root access.

What you could try is to generate a large file with random data, the size of your ramdisk, run a checksum like sha1, copy it over and then compare the checksum. Repeat this hundreds of times with a script, and you may be approaching a method to test the memory. Note that this does not test random-access writing, but only one way of interacting with the memory.

I would not suspect there to be a physical problem just yet, as there are so many layers that could go wrong in between.