The following (see at end) appeared on the Debian list.
I have been experiencing similar things with SuSE-6.3 (SuSE
standard IDE kernel 2.2.13); the machine may freeze altogether
or even reboot itself.
As well as the same Kernel Oops due to Null Pointer dereference,
in /var/log/messages I also get kernel paging request failues.
Sometimes, as for Paolo, it is linked to a cron job, but it
could be any process (including init respawning too fast), and
it has been happening at least every few days, occasionally several
times a day.
Up to now I have been suspecting hardware (CPU/RAM/Video), but
in view of Paulo's posting I am now wondering if there's really
a kernel problem.
Has anyone else experienced this sort of trouble regularly?
Recent Kernel Oops Examples (slightly edited):
==============================================
May 16 22:53:06 kernel: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference
May 25 08:47:17 kernel: Unable to handle kernel paging request at 04374491
May 28 17:58:04 kernel: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference
Jun 4 09:40:08 kernel: Unable to handle kernel paging request at 00c0387e
Jun 9 00:02:08 kernel: Unable to handle kernel paging request at c7fd0c90
Jun 9 00:02:09 kernel: Unable to handle kernel paging request at c7fd05e0
Jun 9 00:02:10 kernel: Unable to handle kernel paging request at c7fd0d18
Jun 9 00:02:18 kernel: Unable to handle kernel paging request at c7fd0a28
[the above repeated 6 more times]
Jun 9 00:02:18 kernel: Unable to handle kernel paging request at c7fd0200
Jun 9 00:02:19 kernel: Unable to handle kernel paging request at c7fd0a28
[the above repeated 12 more times]
Jun 9 00:02:23 kernel: Unable to handle kernel paging request at c7fd0790
[and again]
Jun 9 00:03:00 kernel: Unable to handle kernel paging request at c7fd0200
[repeated several times a minute until]
Jun 9 10:07:00 kernel: Unable to handle kernel paging request at c7fd0200
Jun 15 00:02:28 kernel: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference
==========================================================================
With thanks,
Ted.
(Snipped version of Debian posting follows)
-----FW: <14664.4664.246595.939216@ime.usp.br>-----
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 20:16:08 -0300 (BRT)
From: Paulo Jose da Silva e Silva