Swapfile problem in 6?

[David Wolfskill]

On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 06:09:33PM -0800, Rob wrote:
> ...

> > Yes.  See above URL.  The advantage is that you can
> > (hopefully) capture a log of your debug session.
> > Send a serial BREAK and you should get a DDB>
> > prompt.
> 
> What is this "serial BREAK"?
> How do I "send a serial BREAK" at the serial
> console? Is this some magic key combination?

I'm probably saying something about my age by doing this....  :-}

A "BREAK" (in serial communications) is an absence of start or stop
bits for more than a character's worth of bits, is handled as a
"framing error," and is distinct from any character.

Now, to generate one, you would normally hit the BREAK key of your
terminal (Control-BREAK on some; I think Hazeltine had this feature of
dubious merit).

If you are using a serial communications program (such as "tip") instead
of an ASCII terminal, it depends on the program you're using.

In the case of tip, the sequence "~#" at the beginning of a line will
generate tip's best approximation of a framing error.

In the case of kermit, Control-\B does it.

> And, eh, at the moment of deadlock, there is no
> response at all from the serial console; will the
> "serial BREAK" not be bothered by that?

The serial BREAK won't be bothered at all.  :-}  The issue is (if I
understand properly) whether or not there's enough of the system to be
able to have the tty driver recognize the framing error and do something
appropriate as a result.

Peace,
david
-- 
David H. Wolfskill				david at catwhisker.org
Prediction is difficult, especially if it involves the future. -- Niels Bohr

See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for public key.