From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Feb 26 11:13:16 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 866A016A4CE for ; Thu, 26 Feb 2004 11:13:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from morpheus.mind.net (morpheus.mind.net [69.9.130.12]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4743A43D1F for ; Thu, 26 Feb 2004 11:13:16 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jfox@morpheus.mind.net) Received: from morpheus.mind.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by morpheus.mind.net (8.12.8p2/8.12.8) with ESMTP id i1QJDD4s002956 for ; Thu, 26 Feb 2004 11:13:13 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jfox@morpheus.mind.net) Received: (from jfox@localhost) by morpheus.mind.net (8.12.8p2/8.12.8/Submit) id i1QJDD3S002955 for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Thu, 26 Feb 2004 11:13:13 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 11:13:13 -0800 From: John Fox To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20040226191313.GA2756@mind.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i X-Quip: Fly the white flag of war! Subject: dumps freeze when invoked by amanda's 'sendbackup' X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 19:13:16 -0000 Hello, I've found some strange behavior on one of our FreeBSD 2.2.2 machines, and am hoping that someone here may be able to shed some light on it for us. As mentioned, the machine is running FreeBSD 2.2.2 and AMANDA 2.4.0. A while back, we noticed that dumps of the machines '/usr' partition seemed to freeze as soon as they were started; the 'dump' processes appeared in 'ps' output, but they stayed there all day long (our backups typically finish by around 10:00 AM at the latest). At the same time, dmesg showed us "hard errors" reading from /dev/sd0s1g (the partion holding "/usr"). We eventually killed the dumps. As a test, we then tried a manual dump. I was able to successfully dump that same file system over the network to a drive on another machine. It seemed wierd that a manual dump went fine, but that the dumps spawned by 'sendbackup' did not go at all. However, as I mentioned, we'd seen that drive error, so we removed all of that machine's sd0 partitions from amanda's disklist (system has two other drives, and backups went fine for them) until we could get the drive replaced, which we did last night. Replacement of drive went just fine, and once we'd verified everything was up and running properly, I edited the disklist file and re-enabled backups of the machine's '/usr'. I got in this morning and found that again, the dumps are frozen. 'dmesg' shows nothing except the boot-up messages. I'm rather frustrated at this point, trying to understand how this could be happening. I have checked permissions on the device files, and 'bin', the user amanda runs as on that machine, is a member of the operator group, which has read access to the device files, so it doesn't seem a permissions problem. I doubt it's a drive problem, because the same behavior on two different drives by two different manufacturers? I suppose it's possible, but it seems unlikely. I should mention as well that all drives on system are SCSI 2 50 pin format, under the control of an Adaptec 2940 controller card. So if it's not permissions, and not the drive (although I realize that I haven't really ruled either of these entirely out) then might it be the controller? But if it's the controller, why no problems with other drives in system? Any thoughts would be most welcome. -John -- +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | John Fox | System Administrator | InfoStructure | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | I used to trust the media to tell me the truth, tell us the truth | | But now I've seen the payoffs everywhere I look | | Who can you trust when everyone's a crook? | | -- Queensryche, "Revolution Calling" | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+