/bin/sh core dumps on FreeBSD 7.2

Jeremy Chadwick freebsd at jdc.parodius.com
Thu Nov 12 11:53:52 UTC 2009


On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 11:33:08AM +0100, Hans F. Nordhaug wrote:
> Suddenly /bin/sh started to crash all the time with core dumps. I'm
> running FreeBSD 7.2-RELEASE-p4 (i386) and I have not updated anything
> lately.  The /bin/sh binary seems to be untouched. It might be some
> hardware trouble, but the machine seems to run OK now. (I had to
> replace /bin/sh with a symlink to /rescue/sh.)
> 
> I would like to track down the problem, but running sh I only get
> "Segmentation fault: 11 (core dumped)". I would be happy to run
> gdb and give you a backtrace. Any clues?
> 
> PS! I tried to run "freebsd-update IDS" to see if any files are
> broken, but it stops at
> Inspecting system... sha256: ///boot/kernel/utopia.ko.symbols: Input/output error

Hardware problem.  Take your pick: bad RAM, bad hard disk, bad
motherboard, bad PSU, bad cabling.

You can rule out hard disk problems by installing smartmontools from
ports (sysutils/smartmontools).  Please provide output from the
following command:

smartctl -a /dev/{disk}

Where {disk} is "ad4", "da0", or similar -- and NOT something like
"ad8s1" or "da0s1d".

If multiple disks are in your machine -- the one you want is the
disk you boot from (where /boot exists, and/or root filesystem).

I can teach you how to decode/read SMART statistics correctly.

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                   jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |


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