Subject: aieeeeee, crunch. (program dumping core cause non-responsiveness ?)
To: None <current-users@netbsd.org>
From: Sean Doran <smd@ebone.net>
List: current-users
Date: 10/26/1999 16:31:18
How to kill a system:

	1. cd /partition
	2. df /partition -> < 128MB
	3. limit datasize 128M
	4. start big program that will drop core (staroffice in my case)
	5. watch complaints about /partition: file system full
	   on console

So far, normal, right?

But, all accesses to /partition -freeze- at this point.
The process is dumping core so you can't stop it writing,
since SIGKILL does nothing; and anything that causes a 
write to the partition hangs.  Fun.

I can't figure out why cd in /partition and simple globbing took
forever during the core dump.  Access to other partitions seemed
normal.

Finally identifying the core file name and location allowed
me to truncate the file, which happily brought everything
back to life in a blaze of glory.

I haven't figured out why soffice.bin drops core in the first place though. :(
It works on my laptop, same libraries, same kernel build date...

-i386 

/netbsd
        NetBSD 1.4L (EBONE) #0: Wed Oct 20 17:46:15 CEST 1999

Ouch.

	Sean.