why /var/log/messages went crazy?

[joe at actionline.com]

Several days ago, my /var/log/messages (and syslog and user.log) went
crazy adding entries so fast that my system crashed due to the root
partition filling up and giving a "no space left" message.

Thanks to help from plug and another forum, I was able to delete enough
files to regain enough file space to get the system restarted, and I then
flushed the overloaded error message files and for several days, no
messages were added in /var/log/messages , syslog, and user.log for about
a week. I was checking for new messages every day or two and all seemed to
be okay until today, something caused the /var/log/messages and syslog
files to start filling up rapidly again.  This time I saved 1,000 of the
most recent entries in the messages file (several thousand messages were
added today), shut the system down, and rebooted.  After that, the
messages and syslog files slowed down to a trickle ... but how can I
figure out what is causing a flare-up like this?

I've posted the last 1,000 entries at this link:
http://www.upquick.com/temp/messages.last1000

As you can see, messages were being added at a rate of 15 to 20 per second
before I shut the system down.  After reboot, messages were only added
every couple of minutes or so.

Can anyone please tell me what might be causing these message flare-ups
and how to stop it.

-rw-rw-r-- 1 root    273529 Sep 10 03:54 user.log.1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root    364185 Sep 10 04:02 syslog.1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root    361529 Sep 10 04:02 messages.1

-rw-rw-r-- 1 root   4755667 Sep 14 17:57 user.log
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root   5114200 Sep 14 17:57 syslog
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root   5092302 Sep 14 17:57 messages

-rw-rw-r-- 1 root   4756252 Sep 14 17:59 user.log
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root   5114992 Sep 14 17:59 syslog
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root   5093094 Sep 14 17:59 messages