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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!daily-planet.execpc.com!news.sol.net!uniserve!van-bc!news.mindlink.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!news.msfc.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!awfulhak.demon.co.uk!awfulhak.demon.co.uk!awfulhak.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail From: brian@awfulhak.demon.co.uk (Brian Somers) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: FreeBSD 2.1.0 System Crashes often, please help. Date: 19 Mar 1996 17:44:25 -0000 Organization: Coverform Ltd. Lines: 61 Message-ID: <4imrpp$kg@anorak.coverform.lan> References: <4hbai5$3gd@dot.cstone.net> <4hg6u6$hd9@crocus.gamma.ru> <3140DB71.41C67EA6@FreeBSD.org> X-NNTP-Posting-Host: awfulhak.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Jordan K. Hubbard (jkh@FreeBSD.org) wrote: : Igor Timkin wrote: : > Paul Nguyen (pauln@cstone.net) wrote: : > : Hello, : > : > : We are having this problem with one of our webservers. The machine does fine : > : for 3-5 days after being installed and then it crashes. When it comes back up : > : it stops at the boot: prompt and then keeps on cycling through reboots. We : > I have the same problem on news server. : > : > Configuration: : > FreeBSD-2.1.0R : Hmmm. Needless to say, this is rather disturbing and not generally : indicative of FreeBSD's stabiltity as a web server. Most people report : uptimes of weeks or even months, usually interrupted only for routine : maintainance and backups. : Nonetheless, I'd certainly like to help you guys solve these problems. : Can both of you try the simple experiment of turning the internal and : external caches off and running that way for awhile? It certainly won't : make your systems into speed-demons, but it will at least rule out : memory corruption as the first possibility. : The more obvious possibility is the Adaptec UltraWide support, since : it's one factor you guys have in common, and if you don't have any luck : with the cache test I would suggest that you talk to Justin Gibbs : <gibbs@freebsd.org>, the author of the code in question. In fact, you : may wish to talk to him first since he may have some patches for you to : try and, if they fix the problem, will save you having to play with the : caches at all. To be honest, I *don't* suspect the cache but it's such : a common failure mode that I like to check for it anyway. The range of : pathologies a system with bad cache (or memory) can exhibit is truly : amazing. Above all, please don't suffer in silence. If you continue to : have problems, send us mail at questions@freebsd.org - far more of the : developers read that mailing list than read USENET news. : -- : - Jordan Hubbard : President, FreeBSD Project Ahh, this looks very similar to some problems I had. I installed FreeBSD-2.1.0 as an upgrade to 2.0.5 - 2.0.5 had crashed about 0 - 1 times (barring a ppp kernel problem that was patched shortly after the 2.0.5 release) in the ~6 months I had it installed. 2.1.0 crashed _EVERY_ night. Eventually, I found that I had a /var/cron/tabs/root file in place that looked almost exactly the same as the /etc/crontab file that was installed by the upgrade. /etc/daily was the culprit. Because it was being run twice at exactly the same time, the system crashed. As I remember, it was a vnode inconsistency problem - similar to the problem mentioned previously in this thread with the simultaneous dumps....... It sounds like one of the driver routines is leaving a vnode in a temporarily inconsistent state ? Does this shine any light ? It's as bright as my tourch goes ! -- Brian <brian@awfulhak.demon.co.uk> Don't _EVER_ lose your sense of humour....