Subject: massive /tmp mfs corruption
To: None <current-users@netbsd.org>
From: Hans-Christian Becker <hcb@phc.chalmers.se>
List: current-users
Date: 05/23/2000 17:24:50
(macppc-current)
After a recent rebuild of kernel & userland (May 17) I started to get 
serious problems with my mfs /tmp partition. During a `make build', 
/tmp would within 2-10 minutes turn into a device special file, with 
the most outrageous minor and major numbers. (umount /tmp) would then 
yield /tmp not mounted.) Strangely (?) enough, even before things 
turned this ugly, `make build' in xsrc would give a large number of 
errors (... has more {'s than }'s, syntax errors in header files 
etc), although most of them were ignored until the build fell over 
with a "cannot write to /tmp". Going  single-user and back remounted 
/tmp nicely, but it all started again soon. Presumably, although I am 
not sure, this has caused random lockups when X has been running, 
killing the whole machine without apparent cause. Having /tmp 
symlinked to a ffs partition works perfectly fine.
In the kernel I was running when this happened, I had /dev/random 
configured, although I *think* I had similar problems (machine dies 
without notice in X) with a kernel from May 4.
Any clues?
Best regards,
Hans-Christian
-- 
Dr. Hans-Christian Becker (hcb@phc.chalmers.se)
Department of Physical Chemistry
Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden