2.1.127: Weird fork/exec malfunction

Nils Philippsen (nils@rhlx01.rz.fht-esslingen.de)
Thu, 12 Nov 1998 09:08:11 +0100 (CET)


Yesterday I experienced a real strange behaviour on my system at home (stock
2.1.127 on a Cyrix 6x86L, RH5.2, KDE (don start bashing about this, it not the
topic here)). I compiled a large app that time, suddenly the make process
stopped and I could hardly start new processes -- When I launched a new
Terminal with File/Terminal the window showed up, but the shell didn't start.
I used the mini command line of kwm (Alt+F2) to try to start gtop, literally
minutes later it showed up and I saw 4 processes (make, rpm, netscape and one
I forgot) which all ran at maximum CPU. The weird thing is that there was very
few disk activity, so I'm quite sure that the box didn't run out of mem (gtop
showed full ram usage and a little bit of swap, normal conditions so to
speak). All running apps responded as usual, so there was no lock up, just the
exec()'s seemed to fail. I logged out and funnily X did not restart (who would
have thought it). I tried to Ctrl-Alt-Del, but it failed due to the
aforementioned reasons. Luckily I had Magic SysRq compiled in the kernel
so I could bring down the system nicely.

Nils

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nils Philippsen                  @college: nils@fht-esslingen.de
Vogelsangstrasse 115             @home:    nils@wombat.dialup.fht-esslingen.de
D 70197 Stuttgart                phone:    +49-711-6599405
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Maybe I should patent stupidity so every lawyer will owe me BIG !!
(mpare/at/cadvision/dot/com)

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