FreeBSD constantly crashing

[Robert Watson]

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Stanislav Grozev wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 27, 2004 at 07:50:52PM -0500, Robert Watson wrote:
> > > attached are the kernel configuration and the dmesg.  Please, can anyone
> > > shed any light on this? I thought it was the hardware, but I've changed
> > > everything except the hard disks - new case, new powersupply, new
> > > motherboard, new processor, new RAM, new Adaptec. 
> > 
> > Are you able to get a crash dump, or compile in DDB and get a stack trace?
> 
> I have recompiled a debug kernel and set up the system to provide a
> crashdump.  on the next crash I will get a stack trace and mail it here

Thanks

> > Does seem odd that the problem would persist after a downgrade -- can you
> > confirm that you don't have any kernel modules that are out of sync with
> > your current kernel source?
> 
> i am using make installkernel, it insures that, right? i do not have any
> third party modules - only the standard ones

Sounds good.  Sources of other modules are usually things like VMWare,
etc, and if using them and also tracking -STABLE or -CURRENT, or changing
versions generally, you have to be pretty careful.

> I am using vinum, does that matter? but it is in sync with the kernel so
> far no data corruption has occured (thankfully) 

Well, it might matter in the sense that it's a large piece of code that
increases the breadth of code you're running, but if you're using
installkernel, it shouldn't present an ABI problem (especially if
userspace is also in sync). 

Robert N M Watson             FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects
robert at fledge.watson.org      Senior Research Scientist, McAfee Research