>... Each time amdump runs on the server, one of the clients (a
>freebsd 4.0 box) completely hangs without an error in the /var/log/messages.
>I have not found any logs to tell me what broke when I ran a backup. Does
>anyone have an idea about what is wrong or what I should check?
This is all guesswork because I don't run FreeBSD, but that's never
stopped me from shooting off my E-mouth before :-):
* It could be any number of hardware problems, including the disk
being backed up, the cable, the controller, seating of any of the
things that move, bad termination, bad option switch settings,
speed mismatches (SCSI-2 on a SCSI-1 bus), bad firmware, bad DMA
control to/from memory, bad memory, etc. It could also be any of
the above with the network interface rather than the disk.
* It could be a kernel problem dealing with a hardware problem, or a
just plain kernel/driver bug.
* It is unlikely to be a problem with the dump program or any portion
of Amanda. Those all run in normal user space and usually with
minimal special privileges.
Probably the first few things I'd try are reseating everything that moves
and checking all the DIP switches and jumpers. Twice. Then once more.
Then I'd try a few dummy dumps (are you using dump or GNU tar?) along
these lines (adjust as needed for your OS):
dump 0f - /some/file/system > /dev/null
dump 9f - /some/file/system > /dev/null
If you have maxdumps set greater than one, you might try two (or more)
of these at the same time to add even more contention.
You might also try some large (dump image sized) ftp transfers from the
client to /dev/null on the server.
Unless you happen to find a FreeBSD expert here (which is certainly
likely), my guess is you'll need to go those mailing lists to get much
more help with this. They might be able to tell you, for instance,
how to get into the machine when it is hung and find out exactly what
processes are running, what the kernel is doing, etc.
>Ryan Williams
John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
