"sysctl -a" hangs multiuser boot

[Paul Mather]

On Jul 24, 2011, at 4:35 PM, Nathan Whitehorn wrote:

> On 07/19/11 11:19, Paul Mather wrote:
>> I'm having problems with a kernel built today from a csup done today.  I'm using an Xserve G5 running FreeBSD/powerpc64 9-CURRENT.  The system will not boot up multiuser: it hangs at "Entropy harvesting: interrupts ethernet point_to_point" and gets no further.  I can't Ctrl-C to get the boot past that point.
>> 
>> It appears it is the "sysctl -a" in the entropy kickstart portion of /etc/rc.d/initrandom that is causing the problem.
>> 
>> If I do "sysctl -a" manually it will produce output so far and then no further.  Here are the last few lines before it stops outputting anything more:
>> 
>> [[...]]
>> hw.usb.ugen.debug: 0
>> hw.usb.power_timeout: 30
>> hw.usb.uhub.debug: 0
>> hw.usb.no_pf: 0
>> hw.usb.proc.debug: 0
>> hw.usb.pr_recovery_delay: 250
>> hw.usb.pr_poll_delay: 50
>> hw.usb.uhid.debug: 0
>> hw.usb.ukbd.no_leds: 0
>> hw.usb.ukbd.debug: 0
>> hw.usb.ums.debug: 0
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> The system doesn't hang, but console input ceases to work and I can't SSH into the system any more.  I can still ping the machine, but ping times vary wildly, e.g.,
>> 
>> 27 packets transmitted, 26 packets received, 3.7% packet loss
>> round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 57.076/708.818/1395.450/280.318 ms
>> 
>> Those ping times are way higher than normal.  Here is an example of pinging the machine when it is not under the influence of doing a "sysctl -a":
>> 
>> 23 packets transmitted, 23 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
>> round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.421/0.591/0.758/0.096 ms
>> 
>> 
>> Also, at occasional intervals, this will be output on the console after having done a "sysctl -a":
>> 
>> max66900: iicbus read failed
>> 
>> 
> 
> Could you please try the attached patch?
> 


A new kernel built with the patch can successfully execute "sysctl -a".  Thanks!

Cheers,

Paul.