Re: [Bugme-new] [Bug 9901] New: kernel panic in stex modules (?)

[Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>]

On Wed,  6 Feb 2008 09:40:15 -0800 (PST) bugme-daemon@bugzilla.kernel.org wrote:

> http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9901
> 
>            Summary: kernel panic in stex modules (?)
>            Product: IO/Storage
>            Version: 2.5
>      KernelVersion: 2.6.24
>           Platform: All
>         OS/Version: Linux
>               Tree: Mainline
>             Status: NEW
>           Severity: normal
>           Priority: P1
>          Component: Serial ATA
>         AssignedTo: jgarzik@pobox.com
>         ReportedBy: dairinin@gmail.com
> 
> 
> Latest working kernel version: 2.6.23-r6
> Earliest failing kernel version: 2.6.24
> Distribution: Gentoo
> Hardware Environment: Core2D E6600, Asus p5B Dlx, 2G DDR2 667, Promise ST
> EX4350
> Software Environment: GCC 4.2.3/4.1.2, CFLAGS="-O2"
> 
> Problem Description:
> The problem is frequent kernel panics within the same module. Can't say what it
> is, but looks like it is related to dma and promise driver.
> The first culprit, the memory, is ok, 8 hours of memtest passed without errors.
> Before, kernel 2.6.23-gentoo-r6, compiled with GCC 4.1.2 worked just fine, then
> after upgrade to 4.2.2 th bug appeared. Upgrade to 2.6.24 didn't solve the
> problem. Switching back to GCC 4.1.2 made things better for a moment, crashes
> became less frequent and I thought compiler was the cause. But today system
> crashed again with same symptoms.
> Sorry, but I can't save crash log, so I'll provide screen "shot":
> http://img238.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p2030030ki1.jpg
> 
> Steps to reproduce:
> Boot, start FTP-server, load RAID with heavy input, in some hours it will
> crash. With pure reads system can run several days, heavy write load kills it
> much too easier.
> 

The supertrak driver has regressed in 2.6.24.  And

commit 9cb83c7529d929c00f37d821daed1942a1b20602
Author: FUJITA Tomonori <tomof@acm.org>
Date:   Tue Oct 16 11:24:32 2007 +0200

    [SCSI] add use_sg_chaining option to scsi_host_template
    
looks a likely candidate.

And this:

commit d3f46f39b7092594b498abc12f0c73b0b9913bde
Author: James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com>
Date:   Tue Jan 15 11:11:46 2008 -0600

    [SCSI] remove use_sg_chaining

from 2.6.25 looks to be a likely fix for it.  Should it be backported?