Hi!
I've got a problem with my Linux box. Every now and then, the system
just hangs. Sometimes, this happens after 20 minutes, sometimes the
system crashes after an uptime of 10 days. I changed nearly every
piece of software and hardware, but the crashes continue. Meanwhile I
expect this to be a software problem. I'm currently using a SUSE 6.1
distribution and a 2.2.7 kernel. I've used different X servers with
different gfx cards.=20
If this is a software problem, there is one way to find the problem:
By keeping book about the currently running process. If the crash
occurs in the same process ever and ever again, this process should be=20
the bad guy (I treat the kernel as a process, too). The only cause of
crashes that is not detected by this method could be crashes that are
triggered by DMA transfers. These are unlikely if the hardware is
changed.=20
What I want to know is, whether there is already some bookkeeping
feature or a patch for this available. If not, I would implement
something like this:=20
The kernel writes the PID of the active process or the pseudo-PID 0=20
to a serial port that runs at some high speed. When a new process is
created, the name and parameters of this process are written to the
line, too. On my machine, there are 100 timer interrupts per second.=20
Other interrupts happen more seldom. Therefore I assume that there=20
are less than 200 PIDs/second to be written out. Since a PID is
four bytes, it fits in the FIFO and the data rate of about 800 bytes
per second should be no problem.
What do you think about this approach?=20
Ciao,
Tobias
--=20
Dipl. Inform. Tobias Haustein
Department of Computer Science IV, Aachen University of Technology
Ahornstr. 55, D-52056 Aachen
Phone +49 (241) 80-21417, Fax +49 (241) 8888-220
E-Mail haustein@informatik.rwth-aachen.de
Web http://www-i4.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/~haustein/
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