Binary code in kern.log and

We had one of our servers crashed this morning, the second time in two weeks. Before that, he worked for several months with problems, and afaik, there were no changes.

What's strange is that there are some strange symbols in kern.log and syslog that seem to represent some representation of binary. If I grep for "error" I get "binay file matches", although those files should be explicit text I believe.

Any ideas what might be happening or how to investigate this? hardware glitch / security / ... We are running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

The car reacted at about 11 a.m. and rebooted at about 11:30, so part of the log was also missing.

Example from kern.log.

Sep 26 07:38:42 biominas002 kernel: [918855.467235] device vnet1 entered promiscuous mode Sep 26 07:38:42 biominas002 kernel: [918855.479364] br0: port 3(vnet1) entered forwarding state Sep 26 07:38:42 biominas002 kernel: [918855.479370] br0: port 3(vnet1) entered forwarding state ^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@ ..... ^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@Sep 26 11:23:37 biominas002 kernel: imklog 5.8.6, log source = /proc/kmsg started.

Example from syslog (does not show logging space):

Sep 26 10:51:30 biominas002 rpc.mountd[1942]: authenticated mount request from 143.169.238.125:667 for /home (/home) Sep 26 10:53:54 biominas002 rpc.mountd[1942]: authenticated unmount request from 143.169.238.151:878 for /home (/home) Sep 26 10:56:20 biominas002 rpc.mountd[1942]: authenticated unmount request from 143.169.238.120:879 for /home (/home) Sep 26 10:59:11 biominas002 rpc.mountd[1942]: authenticated mount request from 143.169.238.120:731 for /home (/home) ^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@ ...... ^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@Sep 26 11:23:37 biominas002 kernel: imklog 5.8.6, log source = /proc/kmsg started. Sep 26 11:23:37 biominas002 rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="5.8.6" x-pid="1722" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] start Sep 26 11:23:37 biominas002 rsyslogd: rsyslogd groupid changed to 103