From owner-freebsd-current Sun Nov 8 06:23:08 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id GAA15517 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Sun, 8 Nov 1998 06:23:08 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from fallout.campusview.indiana.edu (fallout.campusview.indiana.edu [149.159.1.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id GAA15512 for ; Sun, 8 Nov 1998 06:23:07 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jfieber@fallout.campusview.indiana.edu) Received: from localhost (jfieber@localhost) by fallout.campusview.indiana.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAA18025; Sun, 8 Nov 1998 09:22:50 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1998 09:22:50 -0500 (EST) From: John Fieber To: Eivind Eklund cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The infamous dying daemons bug In-Reply-To: <19981108140935.06929@follo.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sun, 8 Nov 1998, Eivind Eklund wrote: > * Problem first spotted in January > > * Problem occur on my PPro box with the combinations > - 64MB RAM/128MB swap > - 64MB RAM/256 MB swap (much less frequently than with 128MB swap) > - 80MB RAM/256 MB swap (seems more frequent than with > 64MB/256MB, but I have not recorded how it behaves, so I > can't really say) > I've got a PPro 200 (Origin = "GenuineIntel" Id = 0x617 Stepping=7) > * Problem occur on a P200MMX (Origin = "GenuineIntel" Id = 0x543 Stepping=3) > with 96MB RAM and 200MB swap > * Problem has never occured on a P133 (unknown stepping) with 24MB RAM > and 64MB swap. > * Problem occur with both IDE and a bunch of different SCSI cards > (thus it seems we can eliminate the disk system) * AMD K6/200 (Origin = "AuthenticAMD" Id = 0x562 Stepping=2) Generally, the problem appears as though it can be triggerd by, or is associated with running low on or running out of swap. One question: Is the problem "sticky"? By that I mean, if it is triggered by a memomry shortage, is something in the kernel corrupted that tends to kill/corrupt daemons from that point in time on, or is it just something that affects isolated processes. The symptom (junk pointer to low in ined's case) is obviously triggered by some action of the process, but is the problem itself triggered by an action of that same process? Based on behavior of my system, my hunch is the first scenario but I am definately not certain. I'll try and cook up some way to test it but if anyone else has any ideas about it, that would be great. -john To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message