Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (1185 mails)

[Mark Goldstein <goldstein.mark@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 6:55 AM, Marc Chamberlin
<marc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 5/14/2010 4:38 PM, Linda Walsh wrote:
> > Marc Chamberlin wrote:
> >
> > > I have a problem that I occasionally see on all my systems,
> >
> > ...
> >
> > > Has anyone else seen this problem and is there a solution to it? I
> > > searched bugzilla but could not find any complaints about this issue,
> > > and since I am seeing it on several different computers, I find it hard
> > > to believe that I am the only one seeing it.. I am running openSuSE
> > > 11.2, x86_64 on all my systems. I also looked in /var/log/messages but
> > > see nothing that indicates a problem.
> >
> > ----
> >        I have a similar problem but didn't report it for 2 reasons:
> > 1) I can't figure out where the problem is, and
> > 2) (as a result of 1) can't figure out if it is related to some
> > configuration problem I've created.
> >
> >        But in my case the outcome is worse -- the system hangs
> > when shutting down.  It kills off all processes and goes into the
> > final stages of shutdown -- but hangs before it actually unmounts
> > the disks.  It has to be power-cycled -- the result is disk-thrashing.
> > I've lost a software RAID5 array twice, this way (that contained backups).
> > Neither of my hardware RAID5's have been affected.
> >
> >        It does indicate to me that Software RAID5 isn't very
> > reliable and shouldn't be used for important data.  I have experienced
> > some data loss when some local reconfigurations caused loss of primary
> > data when backups had been on a software RAID5.
> >
> >        I'm contemplating how to switch over to hardware RAID5 for
> > my backups so they won't be destroyed so often.
> >
> >        But had my systems not experienced the shutdown-reboot problems
> > you mentioned, I might never have noticed a problem with software RAID.
> >
> >        FWIW -- if files didn't get written out completely, that'd be
> > 'fine', but to have the arrays fail to be able to be assembled even in
> > degraded mode is unacceptable from a reliability standpoint.
> >
> > -linda
>
> FWIW I have seen another aspect of what I consider is a serious design flaw
> of the Linux kernel, in the shutdown/reboot processes. Some programs (MythTV
> comes immediately to my mind) can actually intercept the shutdown/reboot
> request and prevent it! And man does that infuriate me when I see it
> happen!!! When the OS receives a shutdown or reboot request, NOTHING short
> of a serious hardware failure should prevent it, IMHO. And NO app or process
> should EVER be allowed to prevent it. A shutdown or reboot request may have
> been initiated in response to an emergency, (especially in a situation like
> mine where I am remotely administering a computer and cannot be there to hit
> the power down button) therefore the Linux kernel must absolutely honor the
> request and force the shutdown or reboot to take place, regardless of any
> protests/failure from some darn app or process!
>
> I kinda suspect there has been some creeping features that are now allowing
> apps to intercept the shutdown/reboot request, and like in my situation,
> stopping the process at a runlevel 3 terminal with a login prompt. This is
> DEAD WRONG, it strongly indicates a fundamental design flaw in the kernel,
> because it should never ever happen. Best efforts should be made to preserve
> data, but that does not override the need to expediently shut down or
> restart a computer when so requested.
>
> In the scenario Linda points out, I too have seen a failure occur when
> unmounting devices, resulting in a hung system. Again that is just dead
> wrong, and the Linux kernel should prevent such an event by timing out the
> hung process and forcing the system to proceed with the shutdown/reboot
> process.

I'm also seeing this problem both with 11.0 and 11.1 (32-bits). Was
not able to find out what was causing it. One suspicious piece of SW
was "innocuous" Webilder (python program, doing similar thing to
wedshots desktop on MS Windows: it periodically downloads photos from
webshots or flicker and makes them a wall-paper). It definitely caused
frequent failures on shutdown. Eventually I stopped using it, but
still the problem happens from time to time.

In my experience after X is killed and I log in as root and issue
"halt" command, in most cases it works, but sometimes it is stuck at
some point after stopping network services.

-- 
Mark Goldstein
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