hangs after "Freeing unused kernel memory"

hangs after "Freeing unused kernel memory"

[Siva Prasad]

Hi,

This sounds like a familiar problem, but could not get answers in posts
that came up in google search.

My system hangs after printing the message "Freeing unused kernel
memory". It should execute init after that, but not sure what exactly is
happening. Appreciate if some one can throw few ideas to try out.

Seems it is actually hanging when it makes the call "
run_init_process(ramdisk_execute_command)" in init/main.c

System: 8641D
Kernel: 2.6.19

Vitesse VSC8244: Registered new driver
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with
idebus=3Dxx
bus pci: add driver ALI15x3_IDE
bus ide: add driver ide-disk
bus ide: add driver ide-cdrom
bus scsi: add driver sd
bus pci: add driver ahci
bus platform: add driver fsl-i2c
bus i2c: add driver eeprom
TCP cubic registered
Initializing XFRM netlink socket
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 10
IPv6 over IPv4 tunneling driver
NET: Registered protocol family 17
Freeing unused kernel memory: 140k init

Thanks
Siva

Re: hangs after "Freeing unused kernel memory"

[Gerhard Pircher]

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:00:09 -0800
> Von: "Siva Prasad" <sprasad@bivio.net>
> An: linuxppc-embedded@ozlabs.org, linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org
> Betreff: hangs after "Freeing unused kernel memory"

> Hi,
> 
> This sounds like a familiar problem, but could not get answers in posts
> that came up in google search.
Yes, this is a familiar problem, at least for me. :-)

> My system hangs after printing the message "Freeing unused kernel
> memory". It should execute init after that, but not sure what exactly is
> happening. Appreciate if some one can throw few ideas to try out.
> 
> Seems it is actually hanging when it makes the call "
> run_init_process(ramdisk_execute_command)" in init/main.c
On my machine it hangs after returning from kernel_execve()/do_execve(),
which is called by run_init_process("/sbin/init"). So the problem can be
almost anywhere. The problem appeared first on kernel 2.6.17. 2.6.16
worked fine on my machine.
I'm going to try out git-bisect on these two kernel revisions, now that I
figured out what people mean when they talk about bisecting. :-) I just
have to figure out how to merge my patches with every branch that is
checked out by git-bisect.

Gerhard

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Re: hangs after "Freeing unused kernel memory"

[Linas Vepstas]

On Thu, Nov 15, 2007 at 04:00:09PM -0800, Siva Prasad wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> This sounds like a familiar problem, but could not get answers in posts
> that came up in google search.
> 
> My system hangs after printing the message "Freeing unused kernel
> memory". It should execute init after that, but not sure what exactly is
> happening. Appreciate if some one can throw few ideas to try out.

It might not be a hang, it might be simply that you loose the console.
If this is a redhat system, and you didn't tweak initrd and udev just 
right, this can happen.

Try doing this:

      mount --bind / /mnt
      cp -a /dev/null /mnt/dev
      cp -a /dev/console /mnt/dev
      cp -a /dev/hv* /mnt/dev
      umount /mnt

> Seems it is actually hanging when it makes the call "
> run_init_process(ramdisk_execute_command)" in init/main.c

Then again, your initrd might be corrupted.

--linas

RE: hangs after "Freeing unused kernel memory"

[Siva Prasad]

Hi Linas,

I found it hard way. You are correct. I am just loosing the console, and
all the programs are executing fine. I could put a printk in execve and
see all the programs executing (printk's work fine).

I am using a PowerPC based system with my own kernel and initrd (not
RedHat system). Can you please elaborate on what exactly you are
suggesting me to do. Are you trying to copy /dev/<files> from build
machine to the ramdisk? I am confused.

Further, I could not find /dev/hv* files in any of the systems. What are
they for?

You also mentioned about tweaking initrd and udev. Appreciate some help
with this console loosing.=20

Thanks in advance for your help.

- Siva


-----Original Message-----
From: Linas Vepstas [mailto:linas@austin.ibm.com]=20
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2007 9:52 AM
To: Siva Prasad
Cc: linuxppc-embedded@ozlabs.org; linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org
Subject: Re: hangs after "Freeing unused kernel memory"

On Thu, Nov 15, 2007 at 04:00:09PM -0800, Siva Prasad wrote:
> Hi,
>=20
> This sounds like a familiar problem, but could not get answers in
posts
> that came up in google search.
>=20
> My system hangs after printing the message "Freeing unused kernel
> memory". It should execute init after that, but not sure what exactly
is
> happening. Appreciate if some one can throw few ideas to try out.

It might not be a hang, it might be simply that you loose the console.
If this is a redhat system, and you didn't tweak initrd and udev just=20
right, this can happen.

Try doing this:

      mount --bind / /mnt
      cp -a /dev/null /mnt/dev
      cp -a /dev/console /mnt/dev
      cp -a /dev/hv* /mnt/dev
      umount /mnt

> Seems it is actually hanging when it makes the call "
> run_init_process(ramdisk_execute_command)" in init/main.c

Then again, your initrd might be corrupted.

--linas