> Plus if I try to dump some filesystems, the dump process hanges on
> down_failed forever:
>
> 100 0 367 366 0 0 1028 608 wait4 S p2 0:02 dump
> 140 0 368 367 0 0 1052 660 unix_data_w S p2 0:00 dump
> 44 0 369 368 0 0 0 0 do_exit Z p2 0:00 dump
> 44 0 370 368 0 0 0 0 down_failed DW p2 0:00 (dump)
> 40 0 371 368 0 0 1028 616 down_failed D p2 0:00 dump
>
This sounds like the problem some people encounter but I have never been
able to reconstruct (I will try again tonight with dump). The process is
hanging at down() which probably means that the tape driver is waiting for
the previously sent SCSI command to finish. There are at least the
following two possibilities:
1. There is a bug in the tape driver so that it will never call up() or
the SCSI interrupt is lost, or
2. The SCSI bus is hung.
The timeout in the tape driver is very long (900 seconds) and one needs a
lot of patience in order to find out if the system is waiting for a
timeout or is really hung. You can make the timeout shorter by either
editing the driver (change ST_TIMEOUT) or using mt (mt sttimeout xxx).
A timeout of 60 seconds would probably be enough for a DAT.
Kai
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