SMP Memory Diagnostic for Linux
 

I have downloaded the BradyTech SMP Memory
stand-alone bootable memory diagnostic. Download at

http://members.shaw.ca/yehudi2/memtest86-3.5.tar

"C" Source Code plus Makefile is included, + binary

"memtest.bin"

which is stand-alone bootable memory diagnostic,
that can be installed onto a boot floppy as follows

dd if=memtest.bin of=/dev/fd0

or "memtest.bin" can be configured in /etc/lilo.conf
as a Lilo section for a stand-alone bootable image.

Seeing as I do not have an SMP machine available
I would like to know if the SMP code works. Could
someone with a "Core X" machine, "X" > "1" please try
it and post whether the diagnostic correctly detects the
number of CPUs present, and proceeds to test correctly?

Hi,

I really don't think anyone will take you up on this. Basically security will be the issue. Trust!

No one will openly trust at this level for a test request of this type. I for one would not but paranoia is good. Especially with things happening on the Internet & social engineering.

Maybe the use of a school, University or College system would be possible as a test bed.

:hattip:

Yes, that is a problem. The source is there, but I'd have to look through it before I trust booting this.

Hi,

I agree 'H'. Really don't want to spend time searching through code today.

:hattip:

SMP Memory Diagnostic - Trust (אמונה)
 

If you don't trust the "SMP" go to "config.h" and
comment out the line referring to "#define SMP"
then rebuild the diagnostic as follows:

cd ./memtest86-3.5
make clean
make install

Check the date/time stamp on the following file

memtest.bin

to ensure that you have just "built" it under Linux.
You can make a bootable floppy disk as follows

dd if=memtest.bin of=/dev/fd0

You can make a bootable partition for LiLo by doing

cp -v memtest.bin /boot/memtest.bin

Then configure an additional Linux partition with

/sbin/liloconfig

Finally manually edit this new partition in the file

/etc/lilo.conf

to have parameters

img = /boot/memtest.bin
label = memtest
root = /dev/"whatever" - Whatever is root partition
read-only

and install the new "LiLo" by typing

/sbin/lilo

Please note that I included the "memtest.bin"
ready-to-boot image as a convenience, in case
people did not have Linux. Usually people with
older operating systems can read "tar" archives,
so I did not "bzip2" this archive before I
uploaded it to the reflector as

http://members.shaw.ca/yehudi2/memtest86-3.5.tar

People without Linux (i.e. "DOS" users) should
still be able to extract "memtest.bin" even though
they are unable to build it from the "C" sources.