SMP inode weirdness (kernel)
 

Attempting to change to an SMP kernel on my Debian box to make use of both processors, I have run into an interesting issue where the SMP kernel is getting I/O and inode errors; The non-SMP kernel(s) I have installed all boot up fine, with no such errors at all in dmesg and fsck saying all is fine.

Selecting the SMP kernel generates a whole series of I/O errors as well as this one where it ends up hanging:

ext3_get_inode_loc: unable to read inode block - inode=96543, blcok=196633.

If someone could enlighten me as to how to proceed to determine why this is, and if it is likely a drive issue, a fs/ext3 issue or a kernel configuration issue I'd be mighty oblidged. Not sure how to proceed on this one to determine why the SMP kernel is generating errors the others are not.


TIA,

Emerson

You might have hit a race or somesuch - kernel level ???.

Thanks for the reply.

Can you give me an idea how to check to see if its race related?

In case I didn't make it clear, this is a 'vanilla' SMP kernel, nothing is custom configured (yet!)
Its 2.6.8-3 which seemed to be the latest smp kernel for Sarge debian.

I appreciate the advice.

Emerson

You probably can't tell without an oops, and a *good* knowledge of the code.
That's a seriously old kernel - I'd try a SMP enabled liveCD, and see if you get the same issue. Then it might be worth reporting.
Maybe.

Can you get a later kernel (Sid ?) and just try that - I don't do Debian, so I don't know if it's (easily) do-able.

Really all you can do is try and isolate the failure - is it just this kernel, or if all kernels, what hardware do you have, that sort of thing.

I will try a later kernel, but it just occurred to me, I'm not in front of the box now, but I may have an Intel in one slot and an AMD in another, and I just wondered if that could be the issue, since there I am not using the K7 kernel.

I got to thinking that might be the cause of the race condition, although I understood you could mix and match processors without TOO much difficulty.

Also if anyone has any caveats for running a more recent kernel under Sarge let me know!

Thanks,

Emerson

ps- 686smp vs. 386
 

PS- just wondering about the nomenclature used in kernel names, I notice that the stock kernels on the debian site are all called 386 kernels, but the SMP kernels are called 686 instead.

So there is no such thing as a 386-SMP kernel? Is there a reason for this?

Don't have a lot of experience with kernels but just getting into it.

Emerson

Whoa !!! I'm suprised that ever worked. I also can't imagine anyone will accept a problem report with that configuration.

From some limited exposure to Ubuntu, seems the Debian world uses the "686" nomenclature to indicate (at least) a SMP enabled kernel.
May be optimized for the 686 instruction set as well, I don't know. Check the Debian site.
If it is (probably likely), alarm bells should should be going off in your head.