thorsten wrote: > Wit wrote: >> John McSwain wrote: >>> I am running LFS 6.2 built about 12 months ago. In the last several >>> weeks I had this sytem lockup three times. Now I'm seeing the below in >>> my kern.log. What is this information telling me about the system? >>> >>> Feb 21 08:35:18 server kernel: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer >> <snip> >> >>> repeats many times >>> >>> Thanks for any clues or suggestions! >> Any recent changes to software/hardware? >> > > I would have a special look at Postfix, since the mentioned process qmgr > looks like it belongs to postfix. Have you upgraded postfix before the > system got unstable?
In my first post, I asked about recent changes. No response. In my experience, it was many different processes that got burned. Regardless, *if* the kernel and modules are not buggy, *no* application in user land should be able to cause a kernel panic. Even when applications have "memory leaks" or hog all resources, the kernel should be able to handle it in some rational way that precludes a total system failure. > > A second guess would be to just fetch a new kernel version and try that > one. In case your kernel is the problem. That *might* fix it. I haven't looked at this sort of bug in a long while. Maybe it has been fixed. Just be aware that any new code *may* have regressions or introduce entirely new bugs that may not appear for extended periods. Be sure you keep a couple of back versions (with attendant grub configs) to ease your mind and future efforts if the fix is not better than what it is fixing. Also, be sure and stay with major release number so that ABI and API interfaces don't break on you. > > Thorsten I still think it's hardware *unless* there have been recent changes in software. Could even be file system corruption exposing a bug in apps/kernel by corrupting data or code. I wonder how long since fsck has been run. If the drives are "smart" capable, maybe any problems there can be seen. MHO -- Wit -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
