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Re: load averages



> 
> I have not seen anything quite this before.  Whenever you see a load spike
> like this, please do ps to see what the particular processes involved are.
> If you use ps -Au it will sort by cpu usage (I think there is a sorting
> option too).
> 

Hi,

I felt it happening again (it had now been up 10.5 hours).  So, I ran w
to see where the load average was at: only 5.  However, it hung at that
point. ie I got:

12:44:17 AM  up 10 hours,  3 users,  load averages: ...
USER     TTY FROM            LOGIN@  IDLE   PID WHAT

The only way out was to hit control C.  So I decided to see where
w was hanging by running gdb:

# gdb `which w`

I got some info but rather then copy it, I decided to dump it to a file:

# gdb `which w` | tee out

This time the whole terminal died on me.  I had another telnet session open
and from there I killed w then gdb. When I still couldn't get a responce on
the console, I killed the shell, violently.

The console still does not respond, however, I can now do a successful w:

# w
 1:00:51 AM  up 11 hours,  2 users,  load averages: 0.30, 0.20, 0.18
 USER     TTY FROM            LOGIN@  IDLE   PID WHAT
 neal      p0 192.168.0.2    10:54PM  0:04   560 vi trivial_translator.c
 neal      p1 192.168.0.2    11:01PM     -   676 w

My console session is toast but it appears that getty (?) did not make a 
new login on the console, in addition, ps no longer works:  

# ps -A
^C

I consistently hangs at the following point:

# gdb `which ps`
GNU gdb 19990928
...
(gdb) run
Starting program: /usr/bin/ps
[Switching to thread 681.3]
[Switching to thread 681.4]
(no debugging symbols found)...(no debugging symbols found)...(no debugging symbols found)...(no debugging symbols found)...
(no debugging symbols found)...
Program received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
0x10727c5 in _hurd_intr_rpc_msg_in_trap () from /lib/libc.so.0.2
(gdb) bt
#0  0x10727c5 in _hurd_intr_rpc_msg_in_trap () from /lib/libc.so.0.2
#1  0x11b2ddb in termctty_open_terminal () from /lib/libhurduser.so.0.0
#2  0x11b2ddb in termctty_open_terminal () from /lib/libhurduser.so.0.0
#3  0x1026ffc in ps_context_find_proc_stat () from /lib/libps.so.0.2
#4  0x10270ce in ps_context_find_tty_by_cttyid () from /lib/libps.so.0.2
#5  0x102a8da in proc_stat_set_flags () from /lib/libps.so.0.2
#6  0x1029297 in proc_stat_list_find_bogus_flags () from /lib/libps.so.0.2
#7  0x8049f8a in _start ()
#8  0x804adc5 in _start ()
#9  0x107e7f3 in __libc_start_main () from /lib/libc.so.0.2

I will wait to reboot if you need more debugging information.

-Neal

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neal Walfield                                              neal@walfield.org
UMass Lowell - Fox 1512                                  Phone: 978-934-5347
                                                           Fax: 603-415-3645
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
                -- H. L. Mencken


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