linux-kernel - Re: 2.6.23-rc6: hanging ext3 dbench tests

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Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.0.999.0709110949250.16478@woody.linux-foundation.org>
Date:	Tue, 11 Sep 2007 09:58:32 -0700 (PDT)
From:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
To:	Andy Whitcroft <apw@...dowen.org>
cc:	sct@...hat.com, akpm@...ux-foundation.org, adilger@...sterfs.com,
	linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	mel@....ul.ie
Subject: Re: 2.6.23-rc6: hanging ext3 dbench tests

On Tue, 11 Sep 2007, Andy Whitcroft wrote:
>
> I have a couple of failed test runs against 2.6.23-rc6 where the
> job timed out while running dbench over ext3.  Both on powerpc,
> though both significantly different hardware setups.  A failed
> run like this implies that the machine was still responsive to
> other processes but the dbench was making no progress.  There is
> no console diagnostics during the failure.

Since the machine seems to be otherwise alive, can you do a sysrq-W (which 
is most easily done by just doing a

	echo w > /proc/sysrq-trigger

and you don't actually need any console access or anything like that).

That should give you all the blocked process traces, and if it's a 
deadlock on some semaphore or other, it should all stand out quite nicely.

In fact, things like the above are probably worth scripting for any 
automated testing - if you auto-fail after some time, please make the 
failure case do that sysrq-W by default.

(The other sysrq things can be useful too - "T" shows the same as "W", 
except for _all_ tasks, which is often so verbose that it hides the 
problem, but is sometimes the right thing to do).

			Linus
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