Problem with Linux 2.4.3 kernels

[Justin Erenkrantz <je...@ebuilt.com>]

In the process of hammering the threaded MPM with flood (which is
threaded too) on a SMP Linux 2.4.3 box, I got processes that were in 
a "disk sleep" state.  They are not killable, attachable, or 
debuggable.  Some documentation in the kernel refers to this D state 
as the "uninterruptible sleep" state.  The only way to remove the 
processes is to reboot.  Yuck.

Anyway, it seems to be a bug in the 2.4.3 kernel (maybe earlier?)
kernel.  However, some people reported that it was fixed in 2.4.3-ac5
(see google).  I just upgraded to 2.4.6 (Mandrake's current cooker 
series kernel RPM) and I haven't been able to reproduce it yet.

This seems worthy of a README as both Mandrake 8.0 and RedHat 7.1 are 
based on 2.4.3 - so I believe they will both exhibit this.  -- justin

Re: Problem with Linux 2.4.3 kernels

[dean gaudet <de...@arctic.org>]

On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Aaron Bannert wrote:

> Just on a side note, I also tried to reproduce this bug with my non-SMP
> rh71 (linux 2.4.3) machine, and could not.

redhat 7.1's "2.4.3" includes a lot of the patches that eventually made it
into kernels as recent as 2.4.6.  this is pretty typical of redhat kernels
as they apply whatever patches they need as they go through their qual
cycle.

in production, i generally would only touch "released" versions of the
kernels from folks such as redhat... i only use the latest from
ftp.kernel.org if i'm playing with an experimental system.

-dean

Re: Problem with Linux 2.4.3 kernels

[Aaron Bannert <aa...@ebuilt.com>]

On Mon, Jul 23, 2001 at 10:27:55AM -0700, Justin Erenkrantz wrote:
> In the process of hammering the threaded MPM with flood (which is
> threaded too) on a SMP Linux 2.4.3 box, I got processes that were in 
> a "disk sleep" state.  They are not killable, attachable, or 
> debuggable.  Some documentation in the kernel refers to this D state 
> as the "uninterruptible sleep" state.  The only way to remove the 
> processes is to reboot.  Yuck.
> 
> Anyway, it seems to be a bug in the 2.4.3 kernel (maybe earlier?)
> kernel.  However, some people reported that it was fixed in 2.4.3-ac5
> (see google).  I just upgraded to 2.4.6 (Mandrake's current cooker 
> series kernel RPM) and I haven't been able to reproduce it yet.
> 
> This seems worthy of a README as both Mandrake 8.0 and RedHat 7.1 are 
> based on 2.4.3 - so I believe they will both exhibit this.  -- justin

Just on a side note, I also tried to reproduce this bug with my non-SMP
rh71 (linux 2.4.3) machine, and could not.

-aaron