2001-11-28 03:36:59

by Pascal Haakmat

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: [CRASH (kswapd)]: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000018

Linux 2.4.14 with XFS 1.0.2 patch (but without kdb patch) crashed on me
today. The on screen crash dump said something about kswapd.

I managed to salvage the following information from the screen before the
screen went black (courtesy of the screen blanker?). I didn't find any way
to get the display back so the rest of the information was lost:

---
Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000018
printing eip:
c0137b20
*pde = 00000000
Oops: 0000
CPU: 1
EIP: 0010:[<c0137b20>]

[lost, something about kswapd in all of this]
---

The machine is a dual 600MHz PIII with 512 MB RAM and 1 GB of swap. I had
been running 2.4.14 for almost exactly two days when it crashed. There was
no significant load on the system at the time of the crash. Before this I
had been running 2.4.5 with no such problems (but other problems, such as
mysterious hangs, possibly related to the non-free OSS sound drivers or gcc
or XFS in order of suspicion).

I suppose this is not much use but perhaps it can serve as a data point. I'd
happily provide more information but with most of the crash dump lost I'm
not sure how. Please Cc: through email if you think there is some other info
that I could provide. Thanks.


2001-11-28 15:05:46

by Pascal Haakmat

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [CRASH (kswapd)]: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000018

28/11/01 04:36, Pascal Haakmat wrote:

> Linux 2.4.14 with XFS 1.0.2 patch (but without kdb patch) crashed on me
> today. The on screen crash dump said something about kswapd.
>
> I managed to salvage the following information from the screen before the
> screen went black (courtesy of the screen blanker?). I didn't find any way
> to get the display back so the rest of the information was lost:

[snip]

Some people suggested I should get the Oops information from
/var/log/messages. I should have mentioned that the Oops turns up nowhere in
the logfiles.

I did find a couple of (XFS-related?) Oopses that I hadn't noticed before
though. See the thread "XFS Oopses with 2.4.5 and 2.4.14?". I am starting
to wonder whether it is a good idea to run XFS. Thanks.