Machine freeze when X starts

[Robert Watson]

On Sun, 16 Nov 2003, Jens Rehsack wrote:

> after I updated my machine yesterday to the -CURRENT src/ and ports/ of
> yesterday (2003-11-15 10:30 GMT), build kernel and world as described in
> Kirks HEADSUP mail and rebuild all ports, my machine always crashes when
> I start X. 
> 
> My problem is, that I cannot determine the reason for the crashes, so I
> cannot think about a workaround.  Any hints are very welcome :-) 
> 
> It doesn't matter if I start using gdm or startx from console, the
> workstation switches to graphics mode and stops. I can press keys (eg.
> numlock) and there're recognized, but it seems no action is taken. I
> cannot kill the server using Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, Ctrl+Alt+Del didn't
> reboot, typing 'reset' doesn't do anything and it's not possible to
> remote login to the machine for clean reboot. 
> 
> The machine answers ping requests and accept incoming packets. A
> webserver is running on it and I can telnet to it, but the 'GET /
> HTTP/1.0' isn't answered. 

Hmm.  This failure mode is fairly common when a resource deadlock or lock
deadlock occurs in some kernel subsystems.  Any chance you can get a
serial console on the box so you can drop to DDB and generate some ps and
stacktrace output?

Robert N M Watson             FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects
robert at fledge.watson.org      Network Associates Laboratories