From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Aug 2 18:07:34 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 14F6137B401; Sat, 2 Aug 2003 18:07:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from stork.mail.pas.earthlink.net (stork.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.188]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 556A043F3F; Sat, 2 Aug 2003 18:07:33 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tlambert2@mindspring.com) Received: from user-38lc076.dialup.mindspring.com ([209.86.0.230] helo=mindspring.com) by stork.mail.pas.earthlink.net with asmtp (SSLv3:RC4-MD5:128) (Exim 3.33 #1) id 19j7LP-0005Aw-00; Sat, 02 Aug 2003 18:07:32 -0700 Message-ID: <3F2C601C.4EDBB33C@mindspring.com> Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2003 18:06:36 -0700 From: Terry Lambert X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Greg 'groggy' Lehey References: <1079.192.168.0.3.1059811884.squirrel@webmail.aminor.no> <20030802090052.GA25338@rot13.obsecurity.org> <2712203.1059843659@[192.168.0.2]> <1079.192.168.0.3.1059811884.squirrel@webmail.aminor.no> <20030802090052.GA25338@rot13.obsecurity.org> <20030802091620.GB6331@cicely12.cicely.de> <20030803000528.GF95375@wantadilla.lemis.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-ELNK-Trace: b1a02af9316fbb217a47c185c03b154d40683398e744b8a4e472d9215543838e7de8539482571b2e667c3043c0873f7e350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c cc: ticso@cicely.de cc: current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Yet another crash in FreeBSD 5.1 X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 03 Aug 2003 01:07:34 -0000 Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: > > Please take a look at an older thread named (IIRC) vinum or geom bug? > > Greg asked for special debug output, but it never happened again for me. > > A real murphy bug - it happend on three machines once a day and after > > Gregs response nothing happened over weeks. > > This is the real issue. Until you supply the information I ask for in > the man page or at http://www.vinumvm.org/vinum/how-to-debug.html, > only Terry can help you. This is BS, Greg. I deal with about a traceback every other day, and sometimes as high as 5 in a single day, if it's a busy day for it. The information I gave him gets him to lines of source code, instead of just function names with strange hexadecimal numbers that resolve to instruction offsets that may be specific to his compile flags, date of checkout of the sources from CVS, etc.. I don't know about you, but I can't easily write assembly instructions to tape, run them the tape through my teeth, and read the bits using my dental fillings. If it's a NULL pointer dereference, the place to find it is by turning on what debugging there is, and, if that fails, which it probably will, by eyeballing the lines of source code in question and understanding the code around it well enough that you can tell *how* a pointer there could be NULL. My instructions *get* him those lines of source. If you'll notice from his followup posting of the source in question, Vinum is loaded as a module, and it's the FreeBSD code that Vinum calls, not Vinum, that's causing the crash. There's no reason to be paranoid about your baby with me; unlike some people, personally I like Vinum, so relax and realize that I'm not trying to blame your code by trying to help him squeeze more information out of the data he *is* able to gather. -- Terry