From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Mar 4 01:03:13 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 192A016A4CE; Fri, 4 Mar 2005 01:03:13 +0000 (GMT) Received: from apollo.backplane.com (apollo.backplane.com [216.240.41.2]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E80A343D31; Fri, 4 Mar 2005 01:03:12 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from dillon@apollo.backplane.com) Received: from apollo.backplane.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) j2413C0e082180; Thu, 3 Mar 2005 17:03:12 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dillon@apollo.backplane.com) Received: (from dillon@localhost) by apollo.backplane.com (8.12.9p2/8.12.9/Submit) id j2413CNr082179; Thu, 3 Mar 2005 17:03:12 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dillon) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 17:03:12 -0800 (PST) From: Matthew Dillon Message-Id: <200503040103.j2413CNr082179@apollo.backplane.com> To: Robert Watson References: cc: alc@freebsd.org cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org cc: David Xu cc: peter@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD 5.3 crash (core with debug symbols available) X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 01:03:13 -0000 The main reason we no longer swap the kernel stack is because there are a whole lot of things we put on local thread stacks that other parts of the system may reference even while the process is blocked. e.g. token references, message structures, register or FP save state, and so forth. I also intend to put cache related structures, such as range locks, on the stack. I just didn't want to have to worry about it. Besides, it only happened when a process was actually *SWAPPED* out, not just heavily paged, and how often does *that* happen these days? Even on a heavily loaded system only a handful of processes, mostly getty's and long-idle interactive shells, might actually be swapped out. This makes the memory savings minimal at best. -Matt