From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Feb 27 11:21:38 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A0F8316A4CE for ; Sun, 27 Feb 2005 11:21:38 +0000 (GMT) Received: from asmtp03.eresmas.com (asmtp03.eresmas.com [62.81.235.143]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 22C7343D5D for ; Sun, 27 Feb 2005 11:21:38 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ea1abz@wanadoo.es) Received: from [192.168.108.58] (helo=mx01.eresmas.com) by asmtp03.eresmas.com with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1D5MUS-0004mH-7M for freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org; Sun, 27 Feb 2005 12:21:36 +0100 Received: from [80.103.12.246] (helo=[80.103.12.246]) by mx01.eresmas.com with asmtp (Exim 4.41) id 1D5MUR-0001wY-CR for freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org; Sun, 27 Feb 2005 12:21:36 +0100 Message-ID: <4221AD7A.7080203@wanadoo.es> Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 12:22:34 +0100 From: Ramiro Aceves User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.9 (X11/20041124) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions-en References: <003801c51b2b$1deecc60$04cf589d@simula.eis.uva.es> In-Reply-To: <003801c51b2b$1deecc60$04cf589d@simula.eis.uva.es> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.89.0.0 X-Enigmail-Supports: pgp-inline, pgp-mime Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: 0.0 (/) X-Spam-Score: 0.0 (/) Subject: Re: I killed my system with grep X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 11:21:38 -0000 Ramiro Aceves wrote: > Hello FreeBSD friends: > > I am running a FreeBSD 5.3 system with 64MB RAM and 150 MB swap. > > Yesterday I entered the command: > > # grep -R something / > > and after a while, my system did not respond. I do not remember the exact > messages as I am on a winbugs at the University. The error was about > swapping. I could switch among terminals but the system was dead. I needed > to reboot. > > I rebooted and tried again watching "top" output and I could see as swap > usage was incresing very quickly until it ran out of swap space and the swap > pager failed. > > Was my sytem dead? or, is it possible to recover from that state without > rebooting? How is it possible that a simple command like this could > auto-kill the machine? > > What is the recomended fix for this?: > > a- Asigning more swap. > b- Not executing that command anymore. > > > Thank you very much for your advices and help. > > Ramiro Thanks all for your responses. I understand that I should avoid "greping" into /dev. I will do more accurate searchs into the directories. Ramiro.