FreeBSD 5.2.1 kernel w/ SMP under high load = panic

[Jorn Argelo]

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On Tuesday 03 August 2004 02:07, Chuck Rock wrote:
> I had a similar problem with this release running on any Dell 2550 Rack
> server I had. I tried three different servers with the same config, and I
> had kernel panics at various times. All of them had different information
> on the screen at each panic.
>
> I had several people tel lme they had no such problems with the same
> systems.
>
> I chalked it up to bad driver for the PERC3/DC raid controller. All panics
> seemd to happen under very high disk I/O. The machine would run fine for a
> few days, then just puke.
>
> I moved all the stuff over to a refurb Compaq Dual Xeon 2.8, and have had
> only one problem lockup in the 5 months I've been running it under
> increasing loads. The last lockup I had also seemed related to disk I/O.
>
> Otherwise, 5.2.1 has been a very stable production server processing over
> 1 million E-mail's a day incoming and hundred thousand out.
>
> Chuck
>

During my traineeship we had an PowerEdge 2650 (Dual Xeon with FreeBSD 5.1 at 
that time). The machine had quite high loads (8.00 - 11.00, which was 24/7), 
but it kept working most times. Sometimes after a few days or weeks it 
resulted in a panic. My mentor (who was the Unix specialist) said that it was 
probably been caused by the RAID controller as well. It was a PERC2/DC or 
PERC3/DC, not really sure. I think it's the latter. Anyway, when 5.2 came 
out, my mentor immediately upgraded to 5.2, and the machine became rock 
solid, even with very high loads. It was a monitoring machine, which 
collected over 1600 SMNP requests from every server, so I'm not really sure 
if that produces an high disk I/O or not. 

Perhaps the story is not interesting, but I felt like sharing that.

Cheers,

Jorn


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