[ale] SMP Oops error

[Eric Z. Ayers]

What kind of network card are you using?  We had awful luck with a
3c5x9 under Linux SMP, but when we switched to a Digital Tulip card,
many of our problems went away.  It looks like the fix was finally
found in Kernel version 2.2.8:

from http://www.linuxhq.com/ patches page:

Linux 2.2.8 patch - patch-2.2.8.gz (11-May-99)
    [Patch Browser] 

Notes: Due to the changes in this kernel's buffer code, you may want
to disable the update (bdflush) daemon in your init scripts. 

...

(note from Linus) 

The one major fix in 2.2.8 is the SMP fix for disable_irq(), courtesy
of Andrea Arcangeli (I disagreed in details and did it differently in
the end, but all the heavy lifting was done by Andrea). This is the
thing that caused silenth deaths for some people with certain network
adapters (3c509 and 8390-based cards in particular: the latter covers
ne2000 clones which are fairly common).  


Hope that helps!

-Eric.

 > > On Mon, 9 Aug 1999, Allen, Paula J. wrote:
 > >
 > > > This Redhat 6.0 machine freezes in the afternoons after running for several
 > > > hours.  They get the message below on the console.  A search of the "Aiee,
 > > > killing interrupt handler" error message returned some postings with the
 > > > exact same error, with not much in the way of solutions.  Most were SMP
 > > > machines.  The machine has dual Pentuim Pro 200s and it has 256mb RAM.  Any
 > > > advice would be appreciated ..pj
 > > >
 > > > -----Original Message-----
 > > > From: Pham Viet Cuong [mailto:pvc1 at hsph.edu.vn]
 > > > Sent: Sunday, August 08, 1999 9:35 PM
 > > > To: Paula Allen (E-mail)
 > > > Cc: Micheal Linnan (E-mail 2)
 > > > Subject: from HSPH net
 > > >
 > > >
 > > > Hi Paula and Mike,
 > > >
 > > >
 > > > We still have the problem with Mail server hang up in the afternoon. This
 > > > morning I found this following messages:
 > > >
 > > > ----------------
 > > > Kernel 2.2.5-15smp on i686
 > > > mail login : Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer deference at virtual
 > > > address 00000070
 > > > Current -> tcs.ers=00101000, %crs=00101000
 > > > *pde=0000000
 > > > Oops  : 0002
 > > > CPU   : 0
 > > > EIP   : 0010[<d0863e6e>]
 > > > EFLAGS:00010286
 > > > eax:00004000  ebx:0000000e    ecx:c0592c00    edx: 0000000
 > > > esi: c0592ef  edi: c0592c48   cbp:c0592c48    esp: c009df24
 > > > ds: 0018      es: 0018        ss: 0018
 > > > Process swapper (pid 0, process nr:1  stackpage: c009d000)
 > > > stack: cb05f000       0000000  ffff0ede  0000003 c0592c48 0000000 ca91f7e0
 > > >
 > > > Call trace: [<d0863b4c>] [<d08639fh>] [<c01aae4f>] [<c011a0d9>] [<c010b03e>]
 > > > [<c0108c08>]
 > > >
 > > > Code : f0 ff 4c 70 0f 94 c0 84 c0 74 09 52 c8 3d bf 8c ef 83 c4 04
 > > >
 > > > Aiee, killing interupt handler
 > > > kernel panic : Attempted to kill the idle task
 > > > In Interupt handler - not syncing
 > > >
 > > > ----------------------
 > > >
 > > > Please have look at this and tell us what your suggestion
 > > >
 > > > Cuong
 > > >