From owner-freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 6 13:14:49 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-smp@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-smp@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 886BB16A403 for ; Fri, 6 Oct 2006 13:14:49 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from charles@idealso.com) Received: from mailrelay.freedombi.com (mailrelay.freedombi.com [207.179.93.134]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 32A2943D46 for ; Fri, 6 Oct 2006 13:14:49 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from charles@idealso.com) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.3 (2006-06-01) on sa2.freedombi.com X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.4 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00, DATE_IN_PAST_12_24 autolearn=disabled version=3.1.3 Received: from hq.idealso.com (hq.freedombi.com [207.179.93.137]) by mailrelay.freedombi.com (Postfix) with ESMTP for ; Fri, 6 Oct 2006 09:14:45 -0400 (EDT) Received: from archie.idealso.com (unknown [69.63.233.171]) by hq.idealso.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7512E60CE6F for ; Fri, 6 Oct 2006 09:14:41 -0400 (EDT) From: Charles Ulrich Organization: Ideal Solution To: freebsd-smp@freebsd.org Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2006 15:44:03 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200610051544.03861.charles@idealso.com> X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV using ClamSMTP Subject: FreeBSD 6.1 Instability X-BeenThere: freebsd-smp@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: FreeBSD SMP implementation group List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2006 13:14:49 -0000 Greetings, We have been running FreeBSD on our mail servers for about as long as I can= =20 remember. Recently, we decided to go SMP to handle increased mail load. Aft= er=20 assembling the hardware, installing the OS and software, and restoring all = of=20 our data, we noticed in testing that our first machine began hanging=20 semi-regularly when it began processing lots of mail. Disabling SMP=20 eliminated the hangs completely. We tried it all again on completely=20 different hardware with exactly the same result. Our conclusion: somethings= 's=20 buggy in SMP. Here are the symptoms. The machine hangs, and becomes completely=20 unresponsive. =A0It looks like a deadlock. =A0It will sometimes respond to = the=20 power button and shut down (without being able to first sync and unmount=20 filesystems), and sometimes the power button event gets caught in the=20 deadlock. =A0Sinceit's not actually a crash, there is no core dump or other= =20 debugging information. In the most recent situation, it hung at different=20 points every time I tried to compile ezm3, after successfully compiling oth= er=20 packages. We're system administrators, not kernel hackers, so this is a plea for help= =2E I=20 wouldn't know where to start, but I'm hoping someone can point me in the=20 right direction. We're also willing to give a (trustworthy) FreeBSD develop= er=20 root access to the test machine since it's just sitting idle right now. If= =20 you need to crash it, that's fine. We'll have people during normal business= =20 hours who know how to push a reset button. Thanks for your time. =2D-=20 Charles Ulrich Ideal Solution, LLC -- http://www.idealso.com