/bin/sh core dumps on FreeBSD 7.2

[Ivan Voras]

Hans F. Nordhaug wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> Suddenly /bin/sh started to crash all the time with core dumps. I'm
> running FreeBSD 7.2-RELEASE-p4 (i386) and I have not updated anything
> lately.  The /bin/sh binary seems to be untouched. It might be some
> hardware trouble, but the machine seems to run OK now. (I had to
> replace /bin/sh with a symlink to /rescue/sh.)
> 
> I would like to track down the problem, but running sh I only get
> "Segmentation fault: 11 (core dumped)". I would be happy to run
> gdb and give you a backtrace. Any clues?
> 
> Hans
> 
> PS! I tried to run "freebsd-update IDS" to see if any files are
> broken, but it stops at
> Inspecting system... sha256: ///boot/kernel/utopia.ko.symbols: Input/output error

All of this points to a hardware problem.

I think the best thing you can try is to manually get a hash fingerprint 
of your sh and compare it with another, known good copy.