From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG  Sat Feb 26 04:42:39 2005
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Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 23:42:48 -0500
From: Parv <parv@pair.com>
To: "Loren M. Lang" <lorenl@alzatex.com>
Message-ID: <20050226044248.GA2467@holestein.holy.cow>
Mail-Followup-To: "Loren M. Lang" <lorenl@alzatex.com>,
	Ramiro Aceves <ea1abz@wanadoo.es>,
	freebsd-questions-en <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
References: <003801c51b2b$1deecc60$04cf589d@simula.eis.uva.es>
	<20050225135707.GC18789@alzatex.com>
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cc: freebsd-questions-en <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
cc: Ramiro Aceves <ea1abz@wanadoo.es>
Subject: Re: I killed my system with grep
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in message <20050225135707.GC18789@alzatex.com>,
wrote Loren M. Lang thusly...
>
> On Fri, Feb 25, 2005 at 12:14:04PM +0100, Ramiro Aceves wrote:
> > 
> > I am running a FreeBSD 5.3 system with 64MB RAM and 150 MB swap.
> > 
> > Yesterday I entered the command:
> > 
> > # grep -R something /
> 
> You probably hit a file under /dev/ and caused grep to hang.  It's
> possible that as root, certain device files might hang the system,
> but nothing comes to mind at the moment unless /dev/io could do
> it.  Also, think about what happens when grep hit's /dev/zero.  It
> will never finish.

Would using -I option (not search text-like files) help to avoid
above described hang ups in /dev?


  - Parv

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