File corruption in 2.2.12*

Nicholas R LeRoy (nick.leroy@norland.com)
Fri, 1 Oct 1999 09:36:16 -0500


Hello...

2.2.12+ikd and 2.2.13pre14+ikd are both exhibitting some *BAD*
behaviour on my system. I've run memtest86 for umteen passes, etc..
I'm pretty sure this one is a real bug.

Here's what I know.

# cd /usr/src/linux
# make bzImage
......
......
weird syntax error from the compiler after some time.
# less (source file that compiler pukes on)

File has strange corrupt characters in it. Usually, exactly 2.
Hmmm.... HD transfer problem?
In this case, the file was include/linux/sched.h line 517

# cp include/linux/sched.h /tmp
# shutdown -r now

After reboot:
# diff include/linux/sched.h /tmp
517c517
< extern int do_sigaltstack(const stack_t *ss, stack_t *oss, unsigned long sp);

---
> extern int do_sigaltstack(const stack_ö *ss, sDack_t *Mss, unsIgned long sp);

As you can see, exactly two bytes were corrupt in the bufferred version of the file, and thus copied to the file in /tmp, but the original ON DISK version of the file is fine. Something rotten in China.

That's all I know for now. I'll be gone for the weekend, so hopefully this is all the info you need. Just wanted to report it as soon as possible.

Later

-Nick

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| /`--_   Nicholas R LeRoy      | In a world without fences, Who needs Gates?|
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