Andrew Brown <atatat@atatdot.net>  wrote:
 > it died?  do you have a crash dump?  i would expect those options to
 > cause the kernel to consume some memory by keeping tracking of
 > statistics and usage patterns, etc, not to print things into the
 > message buffer.

no. it didn't panic. the network just stopped completely at which point
I had to reboot it.

Anyway, I've rebuilt and rebooted as per Kent's suggestion and I hope
the problem disappears now.  I realize this doesn't help anyone solve
anything.