FreeBSD 6.x CVSUP today crashes with zero load ...

[Wilko Bulte]

On Mon, Jun 26, 2006 at 11:37:18PM +0200, M.Hirsch wrote..
> Nope,
> 
> I'd like my bank data to be stored on a system that does ECC, no question.
> But please, on hard disk level (RAID; that is _permanent_), not in the 
> RAM of a single node.
> 
> If memory gets corrupted, please, raise a kernel panic... Even if 

You *can't* panic if it is just a single bit error in a user page. You
will never know there was a corruption..  If that was a page holding your
account data your are toast.

> there's ECC in place.

Of course not.  You only panic once you have no other options left.
Proper hardware with ECC give you these options.  I am not talking 
consumer grade crap here of course.

> Counter question:
> Would you like your bank account data to be stored on a medium where one 
> failure can be corrected, two can be detected, but three go unnoticed? 
> How unlikely is that, if you've got some hardware that is really /broken/?

Very unlikely.  There is enough hardware design done after all these
years that this kind of problem can be prevented.

> I know this is a rather random thing to happen.
> Still, I think ECC memory is overrated. Better have it fail immediately. 
> _With a kernel panic, please_

As said, you can't 

> 
> M.
> 
> Wilko Bulte schrieb:
> 
> >Balderdash.  
> >
> >Following your rationale you want your bank account data
> >silently be corrupted by hardware with bit errors?  Be my guest, give
> >me ECC any day.
> >
> >Proper hardware will log the ECC errors, a proper OS tailored to that
> >hardware will log and notify the sysadmins.
> >
> >That is how it should be done.
> >
> >Wilko
> >
> > 
> >
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-- 
Wilko Bulte				wilko at FreeBSD.org