System hangs when /var partition full (vnode_pager_putpages errors)

[Michel Talon]

Maks Verver wrote:

> I recently encountered an error, where executing the ImageMagick
> "convert" 
> tool as an unpriviliged user caused the system to hang.
> 
> The error is similar to one reported in 2004:
>

I had exactly the same problem recently under FreeBSD-6.3. I don't know
if the problem was related to /var full since i was under X and the
machine was completely frozen. It responded to ping and nothing else.
The only solution was to press the reset button, and i had to do manual
fsck after that because the machine panicked doing the background fsck.
Very nasty bug (hence i did not investigate it further ...).

 
-- 

Michel TALON