From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sat, 10 Feb 2001 01:02:15 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sat, 10 Feb 2001 01:02:06 -0500 Received: from Mail.ubishops.ca ([192.197.190.5]:19725 "EHLO Mail.ubishops.ca") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Sat, 10 Feb 2001 01:02:00 -0500 Message-ID: <3A84D950.899549B4@yahoo.co.uk> Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 01:01:52 -0500 From: Thomas Hood X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.2-pre2 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org CC: kuznet@ms2.inr.ac.ru Subject: Re: [PATCH] to deal with bad dev->refcnt in unregister_netdevice() Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > > Here is a patch which may not solve the underlying > > This does not. refcnt cannot be <1 at this point. The refcnt shouldn't be less than 1, but it is in fact less than 1. (As I'm sure you understand.) > > assuming that the latter messages aren't serious? > > They are fatal. Machine must be rebooted after them. True. I found that with testing---lots of ifups and ifdowns, etc.---the kernel becomes unstable. > > I hope the networking gurus can find the real bugs here. > > Well, someone forgets to grab refcnt or makes redundant dev_put. > Try to catch this, f.e. adding BUG() to the places where fatal > messages are generated to get backtraces. > Alexey I think that the ipx driver makes an inappropriate dev_put in its notifier callback. However that is for people better acquainted with the come than I to judge. Removing the ipx driver does work around the problem though. Thomas - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/