2006-05-28 17:34:55

by Janos Haar

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How to send a break? - dump from frozen 64bit linux

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jesper Juhl" <[email protected]>
To: "Haar J?nos" <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2006 6:17 PM
Subject: Re: How to send a break? - dump from frozen 64bit linux


> On 28/05/06, Haar J?nos <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Can somebody tell me, what is wrong exactly?
> >
> I can't tell you exactely what's wrong unfortunately, but after
> looking at your dump & dmesg I notice two things that might be worth
> trying to change :
>
> 1) You seem to be running without any swap space at all. I't usually a
> good idea always to have some swap configured - try adding a swap
> file.
> (note: I don't think this will help with your current problem, it's
> just a good thing to do generally).

Thanks for the idea!

I did thinking of it allready, but dropped, because:
I can only use swap _file_ in this config, and swapping into file is
relatively slow.
I am affraid, it will be slow down this system for some cases.
The system (programs) is relatively small next to the used buffers/caches,
and the kernel will swap out the rarely used programs to be able free up
memory for caching.
I think this is not too good idea on this system, what have allready 4GB of
memory.
The minimum free space is changeable thanks to VM.

Are you sure?

>
> 2) You should try the latest stable kernel. Currently that's 2.6.16.18
> (http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.16.18.tar.bz2).
> There have been lots of fixes added since 2.6.15.x and perhaps you are
> lucky that whatever is giving you trouble has already been fixed in
> that kernel.

Hmm.
Last time, when i try the 2.6.16.x, i have lost close to 4000 users home,
and documents on XFS filesystem!
(a lot of directory have renamed to "/*" like this one: "/ost+found" in the
root.)
I don't want to try it again! :-)

>
>
> > Anyway, i interested about, how can i -a single user- interpret these
dump
> > to made error reporting more useful?
> >
> You can find some info in Documentation/sysrq.txt &
> Documentation/oops-tracing.txt .
> As for posting good error/bug reports, please read the REPORTING-BUGS
> file in the root of the kernel source dir.

Thanks, i will read this.

Anyway, this 64bit hanging issue is reproducible on my system. (normally
about daily, but if i try to trigger it, can be about 3-4x daily.)
If somebody is interested, please let me know, and i will send any useful
infos to debugging this! :-)

Cheers,
Janos


>
>
> --
> Jesper Juhl <[email protected]>
> Don't top-post http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html
> Plain text mails only, please http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to [email protected]
> More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/


2006-05-29 04:37:49

by Jesper Juhl

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How to send a break? - dump from frozen 64bit linux

On 28/05/06, Haar J?nos <[email protected]> wrote:
[snip]
> I can only use swap _file_ in this config, and swapping into file is
> relatively slow.

Not so. With a 2.4.x kernel swap files were slower than swap
partitions, but with the 2.6 kernel a swap file is just as fast as a
swap partition.


[snip]
> >
> > 2) You should try the latest stable kernel. Currently that's 2.6.16.18
> > (http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.16.18.tar.bz2).
> > There have been lots of fixes added since 2.6.15.x and perhaps you are
> > lucky that whatever is giving you trouble has already been fixed in
> > that kernel.
>
> Hmm.
> Last time, when i try the 2.6.16.x, i have lost close to 4000 users home,
> and documents on XFS filesystem!
> (a lot of directory have renamed to "/*" like this one: "/ost+found" in the
> root.)
> I don't want to try it again! :-)
>

That sounds like a pretty serious bug.
Are you sure it was caused by the kernel?
Did you report the bug to LKML & the XFS maintainers so it can get fixed?


--
Jesper Juhl <[email protected]>
Don't top-post http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html
Plain text mails only, please http://www.expita.com/nomime.html

2007-08-20 07:44:21

by Andev Debi

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How to send a break? - dump from frozen 64bit linux

On 5/29/06, Jesper Juhl <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 28/05/06, Haar J?nos <[email protected]> wrote:
> [snip]
> > I can only use swap _file_ in this config, and swapping into file is
> > relatively slow.
>
> Not so. With a 2.4.x kernel swap files were slower than swap
> partitions, but with the 2.6 kernel a swap file is just as fast as a
> swap partition.
>

what made this possible? any pointers please?