FreeBSD 5.4-PRERELEASE as cvsupdated today won't build, OS crashes

[Robert Watson]

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005, O. Hartmann wrote:

> >>Also, the system is really instable after I build the kernel for itself.
> >>Under heavy load, the machine get stuck and freezes. 
> >>
> >>I have no more informations due to remote control of the system. 
> > 
> > Do you have approximate before/after dates for when the instability began?
> > In particular, was it with an update in the last 48 or 96 hours?
> 
> Friday last week I did the last update. Then the machine was shut-down. 
> Today morning we started again, and since then (I built a kernel after
> an 11 am cvsupdate and build kernel), the machine is freezing after I
> tried to build world.  Maybe this is due to kernel and userland are out
> of sync? I try building a world now again, hope this clears up things
> ... 

Ideally, world and kernel being out of sync shouldn't cause instability of
this sort.  Typically, it might result in tools such as ps, top, or maybe
ipfw not working as desired, but not hangs.  If you could confirm the last
date you had a kernel that didn't have instability problems, we can try
and track down what change it is between then and now that caused the
problem to arise. 

Robert N M Watson