In message <Pine.NEB.4.10.9908091304560.7757-100000@yerfable.metonymy.com>, Dav
e Huang writes:
>Oh, is that what it was? I was wondering where all those gmon.out files
>were coming from. Why does that cause a SEGV though? (Or is this the
>problem mentioned in a recent security advisory?)

Because profiling works by creating an array and incrementing members of it.
If the profiling bit gets set in an executable without space reserved for
profiling data, you're incrementing random data and code.  Sometimes, you get
a SEGV.  The problem was that the profile bit was getting inherited by, e.g.,
'cc', from 'make'.  'make' was built for profiling; 'cc' wasn't.

>BTW, dis anyone mention this on the port-alpha list? I was worried my
>hardware had gotten flaky, but reverting to 1.4 cured things. :)

I think I saw it only in private email, sorry.

-s