From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 6 17:18:31 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AAFA51065673; Tue, 6 May 2008 17:18:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cliftonr@lava.net) Received: from outgoing02.lava.net (pie.lava.net [IPv6:2001:1888:0:1:230:48ff:fe5b:3b8c]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6228F8FC16; Tue, 6 May 2008 17:18:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cliftonr@lava.net) Received: from malasada.lava.net (malasada.lava.net [64.65.64.17]) by outgoing02.lava.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 99042170BD3; Tue, 6 May 2008 07:18:30 -1000 (HST) Received: by malasada.lava.net (Postfix, from userid 102) id 3EE2E153882; Tue, 6 May 2008 07:18:30 -1000 (HST) Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 07:18:30 -1000 From: Clifton Royston To: Jeremy Chadwick Message-ID: <20080506171829.GA6784@lava.net> Mail-Followup-To: Jeremy Chadwick , Stephen Clark , freebsd-stable@freebsd.org References: <4819BB3A.6000407@earthlink.net> <481A16E7.8040709@earthlink.net> <20080501210233.GA15528@lava.net> <481B19C4.1040806@earthlink.net> <20080506125938.GA8831@eos.sc1.parodius.com> <4820618F.3070009@earthlink.net> <20080506135642.GA10543@eos.sc1.parodius.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20080506135642.GA10543@eos.sc1.parodius.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.2i Cc: Stephen Clark , freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: reboot after panic X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 06 May 2008 17:18:31 -0000 On Tue, May 06, 2008 at 06:56:42AM -0700, Jeremy Chadwick wrote: > On Tue, May 06, 2008 at 09:47:59AM -0400, Stephen Clark wrote: ... > > but there is never one. It is like it hangs trying to dump the memory image. > > > > This mother board has both sata and pata controllers but I am using only pata > > drives. > > A kernel panic causes the kernel to dump all memory contents (from start > to end) to whatever swap device is available. It's written to the disk > in a fairly "raw" format, with some header data of some sort I think. > After it's done, the system should reboot. > > My guess is that you either don't have any swap defined, swap is defined > incorrectly (disklabel -r output would be useful), or your swap space is > smaller than your total amount of memory. (Swap should usually be 2x > RAM). > > dumpdir and dumpdev are used during the startup process, where > savecore(8) is called. The memory dump on the swap device is extracted > and stored in a file in $dumpdir, which you can examine later. Keep in > mind that savecore(8) will use /dev/dumpdev, which is a symlink to > whatever device your swap lives on -- and that's determined by reading > /etc/fstab. > > Does this help? :-) You might consider the possibility that he is correct in what he has said, rather precisely, is going on. FreeBSD 6.2 (and apparently 6.1) can indeed double-fault or hang during the panic dump in which case no reboot occurs and there is nothing successfully dumped to analyze for debugging, either. It is likely that it only occurs with certain hardware conditions or configurations, which is why not everyone would see it, but that's not the same thing as it being a hardware problem. I've been seeing this on all of my SMP machines since October, and have reported it onlist, and I've been successfully running FreeBSD for nearly 10 years (starting with 3.3) and BSD/OS for years before that. It ain't necessarily PEBKAC. -- Clifton -- Clifton Royston -- cliftonr@iandicomputing.com / cliftonr@lava.net President - I and I Computing * http://www.iandicomputing.com/ Custom programming, network design, systems and network consulting services