Subject: Re: random signals kill my processes with -current
To: None <current-users@NetBSD.ORG, abrown@eecs.harvard.edu>
From: Paul Kranenburg <pk@cs.few.eur.nl>
List: port-sparc
Date: 01/27/1997 12:16:51
> 
> Has anyone seen behavior in -current that processes seem to get random
> signals (especially 26 (virtual timer alarm), and occasionally SEGV's)?
> This is particularly noticeable after they've done a bunch of work (i.e.
> compiling, running X).

Yes, I got bitten last week.

It turns out that process 0 overflows its stack during auto-configuration.
The layout in locore allows for this to happen, but meanwhile a whole
bunch of values in proc0's user structure are now filled with randomness,
including, e.g., p_timer[IMTER_VIRTUAL], which is then propagated to all
processes.

I think it's sufficient to re-init proc0's user structure to zero in
machdep's cpu_startup() after all auto-configuration is done.

-pk