Server Crashed: Kernel Panic

Today my server just crashed instantly... It was running fine with a load of 0.12 but then it went down all the sudden. After a reboot I checked the /var/log/messages file and saw this:

Code:
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000020
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: printing eip:
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: c017292b
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: *pde = 2085d001
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: Oops: 0000 [#1]
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: SMP
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: Modules linked in: ipt_TOS iptable_mangle ip_conntrack_ftp ip_conntrack_irc ipt_LOG ipt_limit ipt_multiport ipt_state ip_conntr
ack ipt_owner ipt_REJECT iptable_filter ip_tables autofs4 i2c_dev i2c_core sunrpc md5 ipv6 dm_mirror dm_mod button battery ac uhci_hcd ehci_hcd e1000 floppy
ext3 jbd ata_piix libata sd_mod scsi_mod
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: CPU: 0
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: EIP: 0060:[<c017292b>] Not tainted VLI
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: EFLAGS: 00010246 (2.6.9-42.0.3.ELsmp)
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: EIP is at dnotify_flush+0xe/0x70
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: eax: c0446c40 ebx: ca05dd80 ecx: 0046ef00 edx: f1d95300
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: esi: 00000000 edi: ca05dd80 ebp: f1d95300 esp: eb3f3fa0
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: ds: 007b es: 007b ss: 0068
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: Process httpd (pid: 28057, threadinfo=eb3f3000 task=efaf03b0)
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: Stack: ca05dd80 00000220 f1d95300 eb3f3000 c015a7e5 0000020f bff65b64 bff65af0
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: c02d47cb 0000020f 0046eff4 08cd4e6c bff65b64 bff65af0 bff615b8 00000006
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: c02d007b 0000007b 00000006 0032a7a2 00000073 00000246 bff61598 0000007b
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: Call Trace:
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: [<c015a7e5>] filp_close+0x49/0x5f
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: [<c02d47cb>] syscall_call+0x7/0xb
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: [<c02d007b>] packet_rcv+0x17e/0x307
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: Code: 00 89 c3 85 d2 74 0e 8b 42 04 8b 12 25 ff ff ff 7f 09 c1 eb ee 89 8b 34 01 00 00 5b c3 55 89 d5 57 89 c7 56 53 8b 40 08 8
b 70 10 <0f> b7 46 20 25 00 f0 00 00 3d 00 40 00 00 75 4d 8d 46 68 e8 fb
Mar 23 15:57:00 alpha kernel: <0>Fatal exception: panic in 5 seconds
Mar 23 16:06:46 alpha syslogd 1.4.1: restart.
So it seems like httpd crashed my server? I checked the Apache error_log and noticed lines like these:

Code:
*** glibc detected *** free(): invalid pointer: 0x08872c98 ***
[Fri Mar 23 15:57:03 2007] [error] [client x.x.x.x] Premature end of script headers: /home/user/public_html/forum/index.php
[Fri Mar 23 15:57:03 2007] [error] [client x.x.x.x] File does not exist: /home/user/public_html/500.shtml
When I look at the whole error_log it seems like such errors appear frequently and for different websites and PHP applications. This isn't the only glibc error, there's also stuff like "*** glibc detected *** corrupted double-linked list: 0x088e0bb8 ***". I have recently installed eAccelerator and searched the web: I'm not the only one who has such problems with eAccelerator. Do you think these glibc errors may have caused the server to crash?

Also, lately I noticed a lot of lines like these in the /var/log/messages file:

Code:
Mar 23 15:47:45 alpha kernel: post_create: setxattr failed, rc=122 (dev=sda7 ino=4318565)
and

Code:
Mar 23 15:50:56 alpha ntpd[2958]: sendto(66.111.46.200): Operation not permitted
I've done some Google'ing on the first error and it seems like someone with the same error got it fixed by running a filesystem check... By the way /dev/sda7 is my /home directory. But in order to run a filesystem check I need to disable all services and unmount /home? That's kind of a pain in the ***... In general, how long do you think it takes to run a filesystem check? Here's information about my /home partition:

Code:
/dev/sda7 198G 71G 118G 38% /home