> > Frank Gockel (gockel@sent13.uni-duisburg.de) mailed a memtest patch to
> > linux-kernel in July 1998 to test memory at boot up. One big advantage
> > of doing the test in kernel is that he marks faulty pages as reserved
> > to stop the kernel using them. Waiting until init is running can be
> > too late, the page might already be in use.
I'd like to know where the patch can be obtained. Is there a repository
for patches like that?
> marking pages fault so that it's not used IMHO is a bad idea. if memory is
> at fault, report it and stop.
Depends. Normally whenever a block of memory is faulty, alarm bells should
ring. But sometimes one has to keep the system up at all cost so that
seems to be a good idea until replacement is installed.
The special memory fault I had didn't show up with incorrect contents,
whenever reading an address inside the range it invoked a processor
exception.
I think a decision like that should be up to the sysadmin, and it's better
at all to know from the very start that the memory is unreliable instead
of getting it to know because of applications (like X) crashing for no
apparent reason.
If the sysadmin then wants to take the risk and keep the system up and
running... Well, he was warned.
Carsten
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