Swapfile problem in 6?

[Rob]

--- Peter Jeremy <PeterJeremy at optushome.com.au> wrote:
> 
> Since your /home is almost empty, how about
> (temporarily) moving the contents into /usr and
> swapping onto ad0s1e rather than into a
> swapfile.  This should at least enable you to
> build a debug kernel.

I'm now indeed building a new kernel, without using
a swapfile. I have following in the kernel config:

 makeoptions DEBUG=-g
 options INVARIANTS
 options WITNESS
 options WITNESS_KDB
 options KDB
 options DDB
 options DDB_NUMSYM
 options GDB

Is that enough?


> >First I used 128 MB swapfile on root partition;
> >then tried again with a 128 MB swapfile on /var.
> >However, exactly the same deadlock occurs:
> 
> Have you pre-allocated the swapfile or is it being
> allocated as necessary?
> If the latter, try "dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile
> bs=1m count=128"

Yes, I always 'zero' the swapfile this way,
before adding. Because I have used this swapfile
construct extensively with previous 5-Stable on
the same PC, I assume that harddisk and hardware
are OK. Therefore my conclusion is, that there's
some problem related to swapfile with 6.

I will try to debug as much as I can, to find out
why the machine becomes dead at a particular point
while using a swapfile (fortunately this is very
reproducible).

I have never debugged a kernel, so I may ask soon
for some assistance. Already now I wonder:

1) Can I debug a kernel that does not crash, but
   just hangs in a deadlock? Everything seems to
   be frozen, except pinging the PC....

2) Is such debugging possible on a headless PC
   without a keyboard attached?
   I do have serial console access.


Thanks,
Rob.



	
		
__________________________________ 
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 
http://mail.yahoo.com