slow system freeze

[Peter Jeremy]

On Thu, 2004-Dec-23 04:08:39 +0100, Benjamin Lutz wrote:
>I'm having a Problem with FreeBSD 5.3 here. The system slowly freezes.
>
>It starts with one application that just locks up. Other applications 
>still work, but when I switch to them and do stuff in them, they usually 
>lock up after a few seconds as well. Starting new processes or logging in 
>at a physical console does not work anymore, and after about 30 secs the 
>whole system is frozen. Nothing is printed to the first physical console 
>or the logs. This has happened both under load and while the system was 
>mostly idle (just me irc'ing).

Can you do a 'ps axl' as the system freezes.  Of particular interest would
be the WCHAN for the frozen processes.

What still works when the system is frozen?  Can you switch VTYs?  Do ping's
work (from another system)?

To actually solve the problem, you're going to need to enable DDB.  See
http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/developers-handbook/kerneldebug.html

Again, a "ps" with the system frozen is the first step.

-- 
Peter Jeremy