>Number:         14189
>Category:       kern
>Synopsis:       NetBSD/alpha dead in the water when syncing with active NFS
>Confidential:   yes
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       high
>Responsible:    kern-bug-people
>State:          open
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Mon Oct 08 12:32:00 PDT 2001
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Reinoud Zandijk
>Release:        about NetBSD-current 1 Oct 2001 <NetBSD-current source date>
>Organization:
NetBSD
	
>Environment:
	
System: NetBSD starbuck 1.5Y NetBSD 1.5Y (config.starbuck) #0: Tue Oct 2 15:18:14 CEST 2001 imago@starbuck:/usr/sources/cvs.netbsd.org/syssrc/sys/arch/alpha/compile/config.starbuck alpha
Architecture: alpha
Machine: DEC Alpha PWS500a with RealtecLogic PCI ethernet card
>Description:
When the machine is doing heavy NFS stuff like compiling a kernel and you type
`sync' in another xterm, it crashes the Alpha stopping all processes. The only
thing that is still alive is suprisingly VT switching and pinging. All other
activities seem to halt.

To get out of this situation you have to reboot the machine since it won't allow
any ssh connections to be made anymore and the keyboard is dead (you can't log in).

The harddiscs are left dirty wich means that they haven't synced yet before this
happeneds. There are multiple errors when FSCK'ing but till now none it couldn't
repair... lucky me!

	
>How-To-Repeat:
Compile in a remote Xterm a kernel source.... then in another remote xterm run `sync'
and there you are... rebooting time :(

	
>Fix:
Don't run `sync' when having much NFS trafic.

	

>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: