Re: Questions regarding a PANIC situation

adamsville2k wrote:
On 9 mai, 08:41, Andrew Smallshaw <andr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2008-05-09, adamsville2k <adamsvill...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



Last week, we experienced 2 KERNEL PANIC error on our SCO Unix 5.0.7
server within a 2 hour span. So I called our sofware support which is
OGC using running on an Informix Database. Within 5 minutes I had as
answer that the problem was an Hardware issue. Since the server is
supported by another supplier, I then called them. They told me that
such of a problem could be software as well. Not only hardware like
the SCO site posts here.
More details would have been appropriate here - you usually have
some indication of the source of the panic. However, the source
is unlikely to be your application, unless possibly it is doing
something nasty with raw memory via /dev/mem or something of that
sort. Put simply, your application shouldn't be able to make the
OS panic. It should reject any invalid requests made by system
calls etc cleanly and without threatening the integrity of the
system. This is generally what happens in reality. To do otherwise
would be a security flaw in that it would present a potential DoS
vector.

So the source of the panic is somewhere within the OS kernel itself
which doesn't have the same level of protection as userland
applications. OSR507 itself is generally fairly stable and so I
would tend to agree with your application provider that this is
probably a hardware issue. Kernel mode drivers typically have
limited error recovery built in to them but this is designed for
errors in normally functioning kit. Since you can't in general
anticipate what problems defective kit might throw up the drivers
don't attempt to and panic if things get too confusing.

--
Andrew Smallshaw
andr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thanks Andrew for replying. I know that there is few details here but
the point is to find out who's wrong and who's right! So if "software"
means SCO OS alone, it's fine to me. I just want ot make sure that
applications don't make the KERNEL to panic.

Adamsville2k

We can't be helpful here without more specific information - make and model of system, how old is it, how much RAM and disk, what other hardware is attached (EG Digiport serial ports, USB printers/disk drives etc. etc.)

What patches have you applied? FYI The current Master Patch version for 5.0.7 is MP5.

Have you looked at the var/adm/syslog file to see if there's evidence of problems just before the PANIC? Ditto any logs maintained by your application?

Any red lights on any disk drives in your RAID array (if you have one)?

Finally, someone needs to write down all the info from the PANIC display on the system console - that info is only onscreen, because a PANIC stops SCO dead in it's tracks.

--
----------------------------------------------------
Pat Welch, UBB Computer Services, a WCS Affiliate
SCO Authorized Partner
Microlite BackupEdge Certified Reseller
Unix/Linux/Windows/Hardware Sales/Support
(209) 745-1401 Cell: (209) 251-9120
E-mail: patubb@xxxxxxxxxxx
----------------------------------------------------
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