Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 17:00:22 -0700 From: Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org> To: Rick Updegrove <dislists@updegrove.net> Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: 4.9 SMP Stability? Message-ID: <20040415000022.GA57253@xor.obsecurity.org> In-Reply-To: <407DCB29.8010109@updegrove.net> References: <40770C0A.3000000@updegrove.net> <407979F3.20501@freebsd.org> <407C5AED.9040709@updegrove.net> <407C76A6.5080502@users.sourceforge.net> <407CA3D6.2090803@updegrove.net> <20040414083216.A45296@server.gisp.dk> <407D466E.9060900@updegrove.net> <407DBD39.6020405@updegrove.net> <20040414232312.GA56901@xor.obsecurity.org> <407DCB29.8010109@updegrove.net>
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--PEIAKu/WMn1b1Hv9 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Wed, Apr 14, 2004 at 04:37:13PM -0700, Rick Updegrove wrote: > Kris Kennaway wrote: > > Thanks for not providing useful details :( >=20 > Sorry Kris, >=20 > I was never able locate any useful info about why this is happening on=20 > my own, which is why I reverted back to 4.8 in the first place. >=20 > What would you like, *exactly*? I have the rest of the night but this=20 > machine has to go back into production *soon*. I am willing to provide= =20 > whatever you specifically ask for but I need some help. In fact someone= =20 > is going to need to hold my hand through some of these steps, so if=20 > anyone is willing I have all night. First verify that * You have an up-to-date BIOS on the system. A lot of systems have buggy BIOSes, and this is frequently the cause of "mysterious crashes" especially for advanced features like SMP. * You have not fiddled with options in the BIOS. Playing with things like memory timing and other BIOS features can cause crashes. * The hardware is all in order, you don't have mismatched components like CPUs with different steppings, etc. These three points hold *whether or not an older version of FreeBSD works for you*, because different versions of FreeBSD interact in different ways with the hardware, and a previously existing problem may suddenly leap out at you when you run a different version. * you're not using out-of-date kernel modules, since in general they must be rebuilt whenever you update your kernel. You said the machine panicked. When you encounter a panic, the useful thing to do is to obtain a debugging traceback, as described in the developers handbook. http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/developers-handbook/kern= eldebug.html Your bug report will be more useful the more relevant details you can provide about it. For example, provide a copy of boot -v, and details of what you are doing to provoke the problem, what you have tried to work around it, and any other partial results you might have. After all this, there's no guarantee that one of the volunteer developers will be able to jump on board to try to solve your problem straight away [1]. Debugging this kind of thing typically takes time, so if you don't have it to spare then you'll just have to put on a happy face and accept that you can't put in the work needed to track newer versions of FreeBSD on your machine. Kris [1] of course, you always have the option to pay an expert to investigate the problem. --PEIAKu/WMn1b1Hv9 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFAfdCWWry0BWjoQKURAgFaAKCQsDCPHqsAf9LhJglZnbEeMYlIWgCg4Xr6 a6mWDrf63JioAhVguT+pWO8= =xaLn -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --PEIAKu/WMn1b1Hv9--
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