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Date:      Tue, 10 Dec 2002 09:12:43 -0600
From:      Mark Nipper <nipsy@tamu.edu>
To:        Philip Kizer <pckizer@nostrum.com>
Cc:        stable@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: question about swap files and crash dumps
Message-ID:  <20021210151243.GB298@ops.tamu.edu>
In-Reply-To: <200212090311.gB93B57S045590@magus.nostrum.com>
References:  <20021127193544.GA4399@ops.tamu.edu> <200212090311.gB93B57S045590@magus.nostrum.com>

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On Sun, Dec 08, 2002 at 09:11:05PM -0600, Philip Kizer wrote:
> >The question is, if I add a swap file using the vnode driver, will the
> >kernel know to make use of the space or does the crash dump handler only
> >use dedicated swap partitions?
> 
> Good question on dumping to a vn device, but I doubt it would work,
> dumpon(8) sets kern.dumpdev with "the device number of the designated
> special_file".  Looks like a physical device is the only option for that.

	I figured as much looking at the man page myself.  :(  Oh
well!

> Since I'm just cathing up and your question was 1.5 weeks ago, had any luck
> since then otherwise?

	None.  And it just crapped itself today again.  I'm
currently running 4.7-RELEASE-p2.

	For what it's worth, I configured a 2GB swap file on my
largest partition.  It doesn't seem to be helping so much right
now.  :)

	Also, and this is the first time I've seen this, my
nightly mail from Charlie Root contained something of possible
interest.  It contained 665 lines of "vm_page_cache: attempting
to cache busy page".  Any ideas what it means and is it related?
I cursory search on Google and Google Groups revealed little.
It's the first time I've seen it since this started happening, so
maybe it's a clue!?

	Anyway, at this point, I'll probably end up backing up
the 260GB+ of junk currently on the machine and will reinstall
this coming weekend, configuring enough swap space to catch a
crash dump this time.  Fun!  Of course, once I have done this, it
will probably stop dying on me.

-- 
Mark Nipper                                                e-contacts:
Computing and Information Services                      nipsy@tamu.edu
Texas A&M University                    http://arrakis.tamu.edu/nipsy/
College Station, TX 77843-3142           AIM: texasnipsy ICQ: 66971617
(979)575-3193                                        Yahoo: texasnipsy

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