From owner-freebsd-current Thu Nov 19 18:40:05 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id SAA29083 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Thu, 19 Nov 1998 18:40:05 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from wall.polstra.com (rtrwan160.accessone.com [206.213.115.74]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA29077 for ; Thu, 19 Nov 1998 18:40:02 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jdp@polstra.com) Received: from vashon.polstra.com (vashon.polstra.com [206.213.73.13]) by wall.polstra.com (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id SAA00363; Thu, 19 Nov 1998 18:39:33 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jdp@polstra.com) From: John Polstra Received: (from jdp@localhost) by vashon.polstra.com (8.9.1/8.9.1) id SAA17040; Thu, 19 Nov 1998 18:39:33 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jdp@polstra.com) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 18:39:33 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199811200239.SAA17040@vashon.polstra.com> To: garman@earthling.net Subject: Re: more dying daemons Newsgroups: polstra.freebsd.current In-Reply-To: <199811190247.SAA25805@hub.freebsd.org> Organization: Polstra & Co., Seattle, WA Cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG In article <199811190247.SAA25805@hub.freebsd.org>, wrote: > while sitting here trying to find a common thread through all this > mess... > > it appears to happen only with servers that fork() copies of themselves > on incoming requests. > > inetd does this, samba does this, and sshd does this. consequently, > inetd dies, samba dies, and sshd dies :) > > however, servers that *don't* fork off a new connection on incoming > requests don't die. This comment nudged my feeble memory and caused me to notice that there are some definite similarities between this problem and the "can't build Modula-3 on an SMP system" bug which I watched Tor Egge fix a few months ago. I won't recap all the details here, but it had to do with forking and corrupted memory and SMP. (Somebody remarked that the dying daemon problem went away for him when he switched to SMP.) Someone who is experiencing this problem please try a very simple experiment for me. On a freshly rebooted system (to ensure a clean slate), do this: sysctl -w kern.fast_vfork=0 Better yet, add it to your /etc/rc.local file too, so that you won't forget to do it the next time you reboot. Then see if the dying daemon problem still happens, and let me know. This is just a hunch, but it's an easy experiment to try. John -- John Polstra jdp@polstra.com John D. Polstra & Co., Inc. Seattle, Washington USA "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." -- H. L. Mencken To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message