Re: How to diagnose kernel panic?

[Lothar Braun <debian@lobraun.de>]

Hi Mark,

On Sun, 2006-07-09 at 15:56 -0400, Mark Copper wrote:
> I have a server that is brought down by a kernel panic every two weeks
> on average.

Did it do that right from the first installation or did it run for some
time without problems?

>   Nothing untoward gets in the logs and the on-screen panic
> message starts with something like
>    Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt
>    
>    Call trace:
>    [<c026bc42>] scsi_request_fn+0xf610x294
> I wasn't able to get any more at the data center...

Well the first thing i'd suppose would be some problem with the hard
ware (most of the kernel panics i saw where related to broken hardware).

And it looks like it's something problematic with the hard drive
containing the root filesystem.

The steps i would do:

1.) Use google with the name of your hard drive and "scsi_request_fn"
and "kernel panic"

2.) Get the hard drive checking tools of your manufacturer and test that
drive

3.) If you have two machines with the same drive, swap drives between
them (and check where the problem occurs then)

4.) Get a newer kernel

After doing this and none of the things above helped:

5.) Write a mail to the kernel guys, tell them about the problem and
what you did to find the problem. 


Hth,
Lothar