*BSD News Article 81220


Return to BSD News archive

Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!howland.erols.net!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!uunet!in3.uu.net!twwells!twwells!not-for-mail
From: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: possible vm bug (was Re: FreeBSD as news-server??)
Date: 20 Oct 1996 23:55:58 -0400
Organization: None, Mt. Laurel, NJ
Lines: 21
Message-ID: <54es8e$9vg@twwells.com>
References: <537ddl$3cc@amd40.wecs.org> <5467p6$bl4@flash.noc.best.net> <54e5h6$p6@twwells.com> <326AC436.41C67EA6@freebsd.org>
NNTP-Posting-Host: twwells.com

In article <326AC436.41C67EA6@freebsd.org>,
John S. Dyson <dyson@freebsd.org> wrote:
: T. William Wells wrote:
: > I've a different opinion now: on another machine I'm running, I'm
: > getting approximately daily crashes. (Not hangs -- processes that
: > just use CPU keep running, disk activity continues, and I can
: > break into ddb.) Everything points to a VM bug of some sort. Time
: > will tell, as I do my debugging.
: >
: EEEK!!!  I know that sometimes I am not responsive, but please
: let me help!!! :-).

Well, I tried your suggestion re NO_SWAPPING. All that happened
was a variation in the failure mode. At the moment, I have
kprintfs scattered through the fork code and when the next crash
happens, I'm going to start a process and see how far it gets in
the fork code. That'll give me a good clue as to where to start
looking.

Anyway, if it *is* a VM bug, can you offer suggestions for things
to poke at with ddb once the things has hung?