Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sun, 27 Apr 1997 16:24:58 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Simon Shapiro <Shimon@i-Connect.Net>
To:        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   A Desparate Plea for Help...
Message-ID:  <XFMail.970427164721.Shimon@i-Connect.Net>

next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
hi Y'all,

i knwon this may not be the proper place for this posting, but I am
desparate.

As many of you know, I have had crashes perstering our FreeBSD machines
ever since 2.2-BETA_A.

At first, the problems appear to have been ahc related.  This was worked on
and appear to be corrected.  Then we had a problem with the sd.c code (?)
flipping when an Iomega Jaz drive is in sleep mode and being accessed.
This causes panics and we know how to live with it (by not using the Jaz
drive;  We cannot get out of Iomega ANY technical data, not even how to
keep it spinning for a while longer.  So much for using Jaz drive in this
project (their loss of large sale.  Not really mine)).

The last and most troubling problem is a complete crash/freeze when running
certain X11 applications;  At ONE point, we managed to observe a panic that
went something like:

Fata trap 12 page fault at 0xf71e0014

_spec_open+0x6e
_vm_open
_open
_syscall
_Xsyscall

There was a mention of bash in this panic.

The reason for a desparate tone in this message is simple;  I committed a
HUGE project to FreeBSD vs. Slowlaris, exactly on the basis of reliability
and quick resolution of problems.

I need to solve this problem, not to be told 9indirectly) that it must be
my fault, as it soes not happen on someone else's machine.

I have spent enough years (over 25) in the Unix kernel business to know how
to read a config file and to know that when applications make a system
call, they are NOT supposed to panic the system.  Even if the confoguration
file is not perfect (this should no compile, and should not compile and
crash on an open(2) call).

So here is my request:  I am willing/eager to solve this problem.  I will
happily give root privilege  to any honorable person willing to work on
this problem.  I will even pay for up to 40 hours of consultation time to
have the problem solved.  Consider this our first contribution to the
FreeBSD project.

I am keeping my employer's name out of this at this time, as the project we
work on is very, very sensitive.  Once completed, there will be a LOT of
good stuff released back into the FreeBSD project.  But right now, all
details must be handled on a person to person basis.

Please contact me via email, or voice at 503.799.2313

I am having the problem with the SMP kernel, the -current (3.0) kernel,
with the 2.2-STABLE (RELENG_2_2), and the 2.2.1 kernel.

The system which exhibits it the most is a P6-200 with 64/128MB of RAM, #9
Video card (S3), 3 serial ports, two AHA-2940W (one is actually UW), an
NE-2000 ethernet card (generic), fpa driver, sound card (SB16), one IDE HD,
one IDE CD, 2 Sony DAT, 1 Plextor SCS CD, 20 disk drives (mostly
BaraCuda).

We have swapped memory, CPU, networking options, devices on the SCSI bus,
etc.  The only constant factor are the software.

We are running 2.2-STABLE, from 970426.  We tried to compile 3.0 from that
period, but it fails.

We experience this problem on several machines, to various degrees.

Simon


stering our FreeBSD machines
ever since 2.2-BETA_A.

At first, the problems appear to have been ahc related.  This was worked on
and appear to be corrected.  Then we had a problem with the sd.c code (?)
flipping when an Iomega 



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?XFMail.970427164721.Shimon>