At 05:57 PM 9/28/02 +0930, Adam Luchjenbroers wrote:
>What parts of system does an FTP transfer of a large file (eg .ISOs)
>affect. I
>am getting hard-lockups while trying to D\L the file.
>
>Where might the problem be?
>
>Mandrake 8.1
>Kernel 2.4.19
>KDE 3.0.2
>
>Athlon 900MHz
>nVidia GeForce 4 Ti4200 128MB
>512MB Corsair DDR333
>Soltek SL-75DRV5 (Via KT333 Chipset, identified as KT266)
>Seagate 40GB HDD
Over the years, I've had systems fail during large ftp transfers, though my
symptom is usually a spontaneous reboot rather than a "hard-lockup" (by
which, I assume, you mean the Linux system that is receiving the file
ceases to respond in any way ... no X, no consoles, no telnet of ssh
response, and no response to pings ... requiring a power-down or a
hard-reset reboot). The cause invariably proved to be marginal hardware (in
fact, this is so predictable that I use large ftp transfers as part of my
stress testing of new systems ... that plus my being a cheapskate probably
explains why I see this problem so often). A large ftp transfer "affects"
about every part of the system there is.
Among the things this test has turned up for me are:
1. An inadequate heatsink/fan combination (an ftp transfer puts a
lot of work on typical CPUs, unearthing any overheating risk it may face).
2. Flaky memory (the ftp transfer will cache into RAM, taking you
to 100% RAM use far more quickly than everyday operation will)
3. A bad power supply (don't know why an ftp transfer turned this
one up).
4. Problems with my swap partition (not sure what; possibly speed
problems on the drive itself, or maybe a problem with DMA).
I'd imagine it could also turn up problems with the NIC or with the
filesystem partition, but I haven't actually experienced either.
--
-------------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"--------
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, California, USA [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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