Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 02:08:12 -0800 (PST) From: Rob <spamrefuse@yahoo.com> To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Swapfile problem in 6? Message-ID: <20051115100813.74195.qmail@web36214.mail.mud.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <20051115065740.GH39882@cirb503493.alcatel.com.au>
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--- Peter Jeremy <PeterJeremy@optushome.com.au> wrote: > > Since your /home is almost empty, how about > (temporarily) moving the contents into /usr and > swapping onto ad0s1e rather than into a > swapfile. This should at least enable you to > build a debug kernel. I'm now indeed building a new kernel, without using a swapfile. I have following in the kernel config: makeoptions DEBUG=-g options INVARIANTS options WITNESS options WITNESS_KDB options KDB options DDB options DDB_NUMSYM options GDB Is that enough? > >First I used 128 MB swapfile on root partition; > >then tried again with a 128 MB swapfile on /var. > >However, exactly the same deadlock occurs: > > Have you pre-allocated the swapfile or is it being > allocated as necessary? > If the latter, try "dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile > bs=1m count=128" Yes, I always 'zero' the swapfile this way, before adding. Because I have used this swapfile construct extensively with previous 5-Stable on the same PC, I assume that harddisk and hardware are OK. Therefore my conclusion is, that there's some problem related to swapfile with 6. I will try to debug as much as I can, to find out why the machine becomes dead at a particular point while using a swapfile (fortunately this is very reproducible). I have never debugged a kernel, so I may ask soon for some assistance. Already now I wonder: 1) Can I debug a kernel that does not crash, but just hangs in a deadlock? Everything seems to be frozen, except pinging the PC.... 2) Is such debugging possible on a headless PC without a keyboard attached? I do have serial console access. Thanks, Rob. __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com
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