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Date:      Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:35:11 +0200
From:      Danny Braniss <danny@cs.huji.ac.il>
To:        hackers@FreeBSD.org
Cc:        freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: dump problems 
Message-ID:  <E1IiTeh-0007tt-G6@cs1.cs.huji.ac.il>
In-Reply-To: <E1IUePt-000P2R-RM@cs1.cs.huji.ac.il> 
References:  <E1ISdQi-000GkC-4v@cs1.cs.huji.ac.il> <20070904233246.GA2409@epia-2.farid-hajji.net> <E1ISnig-000Nbm-Ep@cs1.cs.huji.ac.il> <043a01c7f202$a7ad0920$f7071b60$@co.uk> <E1IU10R-000MRT-T8@cs1.cs.huji.ac.il> <046801c7f229$a4534510$ecf9cf30$@co.uk> <E1IUcXc-000NdZ-LH@cs1.cs.huji.ac.il> <E1IUePt-000P2R-RM@cs1.cs.huji.ac.il>

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> > > > 
> > > > the only indication I can see, is that one of the dump procs. is
> > > > waiting on
> > > > sbwait, and probably it's some deadlock, which is similar to what I
> > > > keep
> > > > seeing here, i'll try now with SCHED_ULE to see if it make a
> > > > difference.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > I'm running SCHED_ULE on these already, if your not I guess it's not the
> > > scheduler?
> > > 
> > I can get it to 'work' by fiddling with the b flag (blocksize), which still
> > points to some timming/deadlock problem.
> > ie:
> > 	dump 0abf 64 /some/backup/file  /file/to/backup
> > now works, but
> > 	dump 0abf 64 - | restore rbf 64 - 
> > hangs as before. (i don't think the b 64 in restore is needed).
> 
> ok, it is time to look at the sources, this program has been around since the 
> beginin of time,
> or at least since Unix V6 :-), and it has been hacked ever since. but now that
> most of you never heard of 9track tapes, etc, I was wondering if there is a 
> point in hacking at
> it again. 
> pros: dump/restore has never failed me till now.
> cons: there are other programs tar/cpio/gtar/etc, but they each have their 
> nits.
> so here are some questions:
> 	- is the readers/writer split realy needed now? my guess it was put in in the 
> old
> 	  days to get tapes streaming - which is btw, what's not working.
> 	- is it/will it be needed for ZFS? [dump is for ufs ...]
> 
> danny

Assumption:
  Since dump was written, much has changed, and in the days of single-core/UP 
the Caltech hack
  (see /usr/src/sbin/dump/tape.c) works. On newer multicore hardware it will 
enter into deadlock
  and thus hang, specially if 'tape' is a file or pipe.

While I'm now putting on the surgical cap to dissect tape.c, any further 
insight is welcome.

cheers,
	danny






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