From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932098AbWB0TwI (ORCPT ); Mon, 27 Feb 2006 14:52:08 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S932084AbWB0TwI (ORCPT ); Mon, 27 Feb 2006 14:52:08 -0500 Received: from lucidpixels.com ([66.45.37.187]:7058 "EHLO lucidpixels.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932098AbWB0TwF (ORCPT ); Mon, 27 Feb 2006 14:52:05 -0500 Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 14:52:04 -0500 (EST) From: Justin Piszcz X-X-Sender: jpiszcz@p34 To: Jesper Juhl cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Question regarding call trace. In-Reply-To: <9a8748490602271133o4aa673e4x3c069c1ab08fc392@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: References: <9a8748490602271133o4aa673e4x3c069c1ab08fc392@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Thanks for the information. On Mon, 27 Feb 2006, Jesper Juhl wrote: > On 2/27/06, Justin Piszcz wrote: >> I have a trace that looks like the following, my question is, are the >> process(es) at the top of the call trace responible for the actual crash >> of the machine? Are they the root cause? >> > > As a general rule, functions near the top of a trace are more likely > to be the cause of the crash than functions near the bottom, but > that's not always the case. > Also sometimes when dealing with race conditions some part of the > kernel messes up and causes a different part of the kernel to crase so > that what you see in the trace is not what actually *caused* the > problem but merely what was affected by a problem somewhere else. > And if there's memory corruption going on then sometimes one part of > the kernel can scrible on random memory and cause a different and > completely unrelated part of the kernel to blow up. > So you cannot always trust a call trace 100%. > > >> Would this point to a bad SCSI board? >> > I'm sorry, I can't tell you :( > > You might want to try enable debugging symbols and frame pointers to > get a more readable trace. > > Consider these options (in the Kernel Hacking section of menuconfig) : > CONFIG_DEBUG_KERNEL > CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO > CONFIG_FRAME_POINTER > CONFIG_UNWIND_INFO > > There are other options in there as well that may help, read their > description and decide for yourself if you think they will be needed - > or maybe someone else who understands your dump better than me can > advice on what specific options to enable. > > Hope this helps you. > > -- > Jesper Juhl > Don't top-post http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html > Plain text mails only, please http://www.expita.com/nomime.html >