OpenSUSE Linux Rants

Server Update

I learned that the following patch was in the 2.6.17 kernel, a version of which was released as stable on Monday:

commit 57a62fed871eb2a95f296fe6c5c250ce21b81a79
Author: Markus Lidel 
Date:   Sat Jun 10 09:54:14 2006 -0700

    [PATCH] I2O: Bugfixes to get I2O working again
    
    From: Markus Lidel 
    
    - Fixed locking of struct i2o_exec_wait in Executive-OSM
    
    - Removed LCT Notify in i2o_exec_probe() which caused freeing memory and
      accessing freed memory during first enumeration of I2O devices
    
    - Added missing locking in i2o_exec_lct_notify()
    
    - removed put_device() of I2O controller in i2o_iop_remove() which caused
      the controller structure get freed to early
    
    - Fixed size of mempool in i2o_iop_alloc()
    
    - Fixed access to freed memory in i2o_msg_get()
    
    See http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6561
    
    Signed-off-by: Markus Lidel 
    Cc: 
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds 

However, the freaking server is still crashing. I have tried using the i2o_block module or the dpt_i2o module on Kubuntu, Gentoo, SUSE 10.0, Knoppix, and SUSE 10.1. I’ve also tried using kernel versions 2.6.15 through 2.6.17 in the SUSE 10.1 install. All of these attempts have resulted in the same exact behavior: the server hangs at random. Dean contacted me (thanks, bro) with a suggestion to update the firmware and bios. As luck would have it, they were already at their latest versions.

Because I have the 2.6.17 kernel installed with the patch that was supposed to fix my problem, I’m beginning to wonder if the problem isn’t related to a hardware failure somewhere. I started a 24-hour memory test today to see if I could find a problem with the RAM. Any other suggestions for things that I could try?

By the way, for hardware diagnosis and tons of other cool tools, I recommend The Ultimate Boot CD. Anyone else have other suggestions?