Re: busmaster question

2001-04-28 Thread Jeremy Jackson

daniel sheltraw wrote:

> Hello kernel listees
>
> I have a busmaster question I am hoping you can help me with.
> If a PCI device is acting as a busmaster and the processor initiates a
> read/write to another device on the PCI bus while the busmater-device is in
> control of the bus what happens to the instructions initiated by the
> processor? Are they never seen by the device that the processor
> is trying to read/write?

An excellent book about PCI is Mindshare's "PCI System Architecture"
Third (or later?) Edition.

In the scenerio you outlined, the device currently holding the bus
would continue until it's latency timer expired (if it already hadn't),
stalling the CPU,
then the master which has been granted access next to the bus would
start it's access.  If the only other master requesting access is the CPU,
then it will get it.  If there are others, then it is implementation dependent

who has highest arbitration priority.

Note that since main memory is not on the PCI bus, the CPU can cary on
unless it tries to access video memory, IDE registers, etc. for IO.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Block device strategy and requests

2001-04-26 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Malcolm Beattie wrote:

> I'm designing a block device driver for a high performance disk
> subsystem with unusual characteristics. To what extent is the
> limited number of "struct request"s (128 by default) necessary for
> back-pressure? With this I/O subsystem it would be possible for the
> strategy function to rip the requests from the request list straight
> away, arrange for the I/Os to be done to/from the buffer_heads (with
> no additional state required) with no memory "leak". This would
> effectively mean that the only limit on the number of I/Os queued
> would be the number of buffer_heads allocated; not a fixed number of
> "struct request"s in flight. Is this reasonable or does any memory or
> resource balancing depend on the number of I/Os outstanding being
> bounded?
>
> Also, there is a lot of flexibility in how often interrupts are sent
> to mark the buffer_heads up-to-date. (With the requests pulled
> straight off the queue, the job of end_that_request_first() in doing
> the linked list updates and bh->b_end_io() callbacks would be done by
> the interrupt routine directly.) At one extreme, I could take an
> interrupt for each 4K block issued and mark it up-to-date very
> quickly making for very low-latency I/O but a very large interrupt
> rate when I/O throughput is high. The alternative would be to arrange
> for an interrupt every n buffer_heads (or based on some other
> criterion) and only take an interrupt and mark buffers up-to-date on

I believe it is common practice for this type of problem is to mix both
approaches:
Wait for a certain number of requests *OR* a timeout, whichever comes first.
Then, if there's not much IO, things are still guaranteed to be updated
reasonably
quickly.  If io is heavy,
then things will be updated in large chunks, becoming more efficient (fewer
interrupts) when it is needed most.

>
> each of those). Are there any rules of thumb on which is best or
> doesn't it matter too much?
>

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Block device strategy and requests

2001-04-26 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Malcolm Beattie wrote:

 I'm designing a block device driver for a high performance disk
 subsystem with unusual characteristics. To what extent is the
 limited number of struct requests (128 by default) necessary for
 back-pressure? With this I/O subsystem it would be possible for the
 strategy function to rip the requests from the request list straight
 away, arrange for the I/Os to be done to/from the buffer_heads (with
 no additional state required) with no memory leak. This would
 effectively mean that the only limit on the number of I/Os queued
 would be the number of buffer_heads allocated; not a fixed number of
 struct requests in flight. Is this reasonable or does any memory or
 resource balancing depend on the number of I/Os outstanding being
 bounded?

 Also, there is a lot of flexibility in how often interrupts are sent
 to mark the buffer_heads up-to-date. (With the requests pulled
 straight off the queue, the job of end_that_request_first() in doing
 the linked list updates and bh-b_end_io() callbacks would be done by
 the interrupt routine directly.) At one extreme, I could take an
 interrupt for each 4K block issued and mark it up-to-date very
 quickly making for very low-latency I/O but a very large interrupt
 rate when I/O throughput is high. The alternative would be to arrange
 for an interrupt every n buffer_heads (or based on some other
 criterion) and only take an interrupt and mark buffers up-to-date on

I believe it is common practice for this type of problem is to mix both
approaches:
Wait for a certain number of requests *OR* a timeout, whichever comes first.
Then, if there's not much IO, things are still guaranteed to be updated
reasonably
quickly.  If io is heavy,
then things will be updated in large chunks, becoming more efficient (fewer
interrupts) when it is needed most.


 each of those). Are there any rules of thumb on which is best or
 doesn't it matter too much?


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-kernel in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Event tools, do they exist

2001-04-25 Thread Jeremy Jackson

I think all of this has been done... you should check out
the Linux Trace Toolkit.

george anzinger wrote:

> This is an attempt to look in the wheel locker.
>
> I need a simple event sub system for use in the kernel.  I envision at
> least two types of events: the history event and the timing event.
>
> The timing event would keep track of start/stop times by class.  If, for
> example, I wanted to know how much time the kernel spends doing the
> recalc in schedule() I would put and event start in front of it and an
> end at the other end.  The sub system would note the first event time
> and the cumulative time between all starts and stops on the same event.
> When reported by /proc/ it would give the total event time, the elapsed
> time and the % of processor time for each of the possibly several
> classes.
>
> The history event would record each events time, location, data1,
> data2.  It would keep N of these (the last N) and report M (M= /proc/.  This list should also be kept in a format that a simple
> debugger can easily examine.
>
> Somebody must have written these routines and have them in their
> library.  Sure would help if I could have a peek.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Event tools, do they exist

2001-04-25 Thread Jeremy Jackson

I think all of this has been done... you should check out
the Linux Trace Toolkit.

george anzinger wrote:

 This is an attempt to look in the wheel locker.

 I need a simple event sub system for use in the kernel.  I envision at
 least two types of events: the history event and the timing event.

 The timing event would keep track of start/stop times by class.  If, for
 example, I wanted to know how much time the kernel spends doing the
 recalc in schedule() I would put and event start in front of it and an
 end at the other end.  The sub system would note the first event time
 and the cumulative time between all starts and stops on the same event.
 When reported by /proc/ it would give the total event time, the elapsed
 time and the % of processor time for each of the possibly several
 classes.

 The history event would record each events time, location, data1,
 data2.  It would keep N of these (the last N) and report M (M=N) via
 /proc/.  This list should also be kept in a format that a simple
 debugger can easily examine.

 Somebody must have written these routines and have them in their
 library.  Sure would help if I could have a peek.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-kernel in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: [PATCH] Single user linux

2001-04-24 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Alan Cox wrote:

> > so what the hell is transmeta doing with mobile linux (midori).
> > is it going to teach multi-user thing to tablet owners?
>
> Thats you problem. Distinguish the OS from the user interface.
>
> > surely mortals expect midori to behave like their pc. lets say
> > on redhat, they have to login as root to access their files,
> > they don't even know what a root is!
>
> Even my digital tv box has multiple users. The fact you cannot figure out how
> to make your UI present that to the end user in a suitable manner is not
> the kernels problem. Get a real UI designer.

Quote of the day:

Never engage in a battle of wits with an idiot;  they will bring
you down to their level, then beat you with experience.

Cheers!

Jeremy


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: [PATCH] Single user linux

2001-04-24 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Alan Cox wrote:

  so what the hell is transmeta doing with mobile linux (midori).
  is it going to teach multi-user thing to tablet owners?

 Thats you problem. Distinguish the OS from the user interface.

  surely mortals expect midori to behave like their pc. lets say
  on redhat, they have to login as root to access their files,
  they don't even know what a root is!

 Even my digital tv box has multiple users. The fact you cannot figure out how
 to make your UI present that to the end user in a suitable manner is not
 the kernels problem. Get a real UI designer.

Quote of the day:

Never engage in a battle of wits with an idiot;  they will bring
you down to their level, then beat you with experience.

Cheers!

Jeremy


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe linux-kernel in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: linux timer performance ?

2001-04-19 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Praveen Rajendran wrote:

> hi
>
> I am working on a kernel module which requires the addition of a large
> number of kernel timers  to expire statistical values ( including time
> ) maintained in a table.
>
> One alternative would be to use a single timer and traverse the entire
> table and use the existing system time to expire the values ( comparing
> it with the time already stored in the table )when the timer expires .

Most versions of cron claim to be very scalable, and use an optimized
algorithm to do the second option.  (avoiding linear scan) You could likely
just cut and paste
the code.  Problem solved?

>
>
> Following the method I describe first I would have to add a large number
> of timers ( around 2000) ... would this cause any significant
> performance drop  ? which method should I use ?
>
> thanks in advance
>
> Praveen
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Is there a way to turn file caching off ?

2001-04-19 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Helge Hafting wrote:

> Jeremy Jackson wrote:
>
> > currently all the kernel's heuristics are feed-back control loops.
> > what you are asking for is a feed-forward system: a way for the application
> > to tell kernel "I'm only reading this once, so after I'm done, throw it out
> > straight away"
> > and "I'm only writing this data, so after I'm done, start writing it out and
> > then forget it"
> >
> This is hard to get right.  Sure - your unpack/copy program read once
> and
> writes once.  But the stuff might be used shortly thereafter by
> another process.  For example:  I unpack a kernel tarball.  tar
> knows it writes only once and might not need more than 5M to do
> this as efficient as possible with my disks.  A lot of other cache
> could be saved, fewer things swapped out.
> But then I compile it.  Todays system ensures that lots of the source
> is in memory already.  Limiting the caching to what tar needed
> however will force the source to be read from disk once during
> the compile - not what I want at all.

They why would you tell tar not to use cache?  If you know what's happening
next you need to tell the system (feed-forward), not have it try to read your
mind.  I'm assuming your modified tar would have an option switch
to cause this behaviour, not be hard coded...

>
>
> A program may know its own access pattern, but it don't usually know
> future access patterns.  Well, backing up the entire fs could benefit

Yes, so a script that does the above wouldn't enable no cache mode
for written files.  The program doesn't know, but the encompasing
script (or person at console) does.

>
> from a something like this, you probably won't need the backup again
> soon.  But this is hard to know in many other cases.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Is there a way to turn file caching off ?

2001-04-19 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Helge Hafting wrote:

 Jeremy Jackson wrote:

  currently all the kernel's heuristics are feed-back control loops.
  what you are asking for is a feed-forward system: a way for the application
  to tell kernel "I'm only reading this once, so after I'm done, throw it out
  straight away"
  and "I'm only writing this data, so after I'm done, start writing it out and
  then forget it"
 
 This is hard to get right.  Sure - your unpack/copy program read once
 and
 writes once.  But the stuff might be used shortly thereafter by
 another process.  For example:  I unpack a kernel tarball.  tar
 knows it writes only once and might not need more than 5M to do
 this as efficient as possible with my disks.  A lot of other cache
 could be saved, fewer things swapped out.
 But then I compile it.  Todays system ensures that lots of the source
 is in memory already.  Limiting the caching to what tar needed
 however will force the source to be read from disk once during
 the compile - not what I want at all.

They why would you tell tar not to use cache?  If you know what's happening
next you need to tell the system (feed-forward), not have it try to read your
mind.  I'm assuming your modified tar would have an option switch
to cause this behaviour, not be hard coded...



 A program may know its own access pattern, but it don't usually know
 future access patterns.  Well, backing up the entire fs could benefit

Yes, so a script that does the above wouldn't enable no cache mode
for written files.  The program doesn't know, but the encompasing
script (or person at console) does.


 from a something like this, you probably won't need the backup again
 soon.  But this is hard to know in many other cases.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: linux timer performance ?

2001-04-19 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Praveen Rajendran wrote:

 hi

 I am working on a kernel module which requires the addition of a large
 number of kernel timers  to expire statistical values ( including time
 ) maintained in a table.

 One alternative would be to use a single timer and traverse the entire
 table and use the existing system time to expire the values ( comparing
 it with the time already stored in the table )when the timer expires .

Most versions of cron claim to be very scalable, and use an optimized
algorithm to do the second option.  (avoiding linear scan) You could likely
just cut and paste
the code.  Problem solved?



 Following the method I describe first I would have to add a large number
 of timers ( around 2000) ... would this cause any significant
 performance drop  ? which method should I use ?

 thanks in advance

 Praveen

 -
 To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
 the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
 Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Is there a way to turn file caching off ?

2001-04-18 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Bjorn Wesen wrote:

> A similar phenomenon happens when you simply copy a file - file A is read
> into the cache and file B is written to the cache, until the memory runs
> out. Then both start to flush at the same time, creating a horrible

in this example only file B needs uses IO when being flushed; A's
buffers aren't dirty, so they're just 'forgotten'

>
> performance hit (especially if A and B are on the same disk :)
>

bdflush and 2.4's equivalent are tunable; if all you do is this copying
then optimise these parameters for this task.

>
> I don't know a way to fix this except having the kernel correctly identify
> the access pattern and optimize for it (i.e. if it recognizes that cache

currently all the kernel's heuristics are feed-back control loops.
what you are asking for is a feed-forward system: a way for the application
to tell kernel "I'm only reading this once, so after I'm done, throw it out
straight away"
and "I'm only writing this data, so after I'm done, start writing it out and
then forget it"

perhaps you could try mounting the destinatinon 'sync'
with dd at least you could specify block size,
there is also raw devices (no cache) mmaped files with madvise,
fdatasync()... lots of ways.

>
> pages are flushed in order to make room for more pages from the same
> inode, then it's probably a suboptimal caching pattern and instead it
> should probably increase the readahead and flush bigger chunks of pages at
> the same time). I don't think anything can be done to the writing queue
> (except maybe make the kernel understand that seek-time is more expensive
> than transfer-time, so it does not schedule the read/writeing each odd

there is the elevator seek mechanism...

>
> page..)
>
> I'm still using 2.4.0 though so maybe this behaviour has been fixed to the
> better in later kernels..
>
> As a sidenote, try the same thing on an WinNT box and watch it die :) Like
> unpacking a 1 GB file on a machine with 128 MB ram.. after it has unpacked
> the first 100 MB's or so, performance drops to 1% or something..

Isn't this due to the journaling filesystem?  All that seeking sure slows
things down...

>
>
> -BW
>
> On Tue, 17 Apr 2001, Laurent Chavet wrote:
> > First cache grows to the size of RAM (2GB) with transfer rate
> > slowing down as the cache grows.
> > Then the transfer rates drops a lot (2 to 3 time slower than the
> > drive capacity) and there is a very high CPU usage of system time (more
> > than a CPU) used by bdflush and kswapd (and some others like kupdated).
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: I can eject a mounted CD

2001-04-18 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Giuliano Pochini wrote:

> >> >> That's not the point. The kernel should not allow someone to
> >> >> eject a mounted media.
> >> >
> >> > rpm -e magicdev
> >>
> >> Magicdev is not installed.
> >> Ok, I'm the only one with this problem, I'll manage to find the bug by myself.
> >
> > eject(1) line 36:
> >
> >If the device is currently mounted, it is unmounted before
> >ejecting.
>
> But it doesn't get unmounted. I eject the disk but I can still see
> and read the (cached) files !
>
> Bye.
> Giuliano Pochini ->)|(<- Shiny Network {AS6665} ->)|(<-
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

hdparm has an option controlling door locking; try locking it manually
to see if the drive can even lock the door.  then try setting it
to match mounted/unmounted status of device;  maybe it defaults
to always unlocked for some reason.

hdparm -L 1 /dev/hdc

also try commenting out one of those fstab lines... may be confusing things.
it should work the way you have it - you say mount /mnt/fstype and
depending of fstype it picks the right line, but just for the sake of debugging
try loosing one temporarily.

Cheers

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: I can eject a mounted CD

2001-04-18 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Giuliano Pochini wrote:

   That's not the point. The kernel should not allow someone to
   eject a mounted media.
  
   rpm -e magicdev
 
  Magicdev is not installed.
  Ok, I'm the only one with this problem, I'll manage to find the bug by myself.
 
  eject(1) line 36:
 
 If the device is currently mounted, it is unmounted before
 ejecting.

 But it doesn't get unmounted. I eject the disk but I can still see
 and read the (cached) files !

 Bye.
 Giuliano Pochini -)|(- Shiny Network {AS6665} -)|(-

 -
 To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
 the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
 Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

hdparm has an option controlling door locking; try locking it manually
to see if the drive can even lock the door.  then try setting it
to match mounted/unmounted status of device;  maybe it defaults
to always unlocked for some reason.

hdparm -L 1 /dev/hdc

also try commenting out one of those fstab lines... may be confusing things.
it should work the way you have it - you say mount /mnt/fstype and
depending of fstype it picks the right line, but just for the sake of debugging
try loosing one temporarily.

Cheers

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Writing to Pana DVD-RAM

2001-04-14 Thread Jeremy Jackson

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am running RedHat Wolverine (beta) with kernel 2.4.2.  I have a SCSI subsystem 
>(AHA2740) with a Panasonic LF-D101 DVDRAM on it.
>
> I read that the CDROM driver is built to recognize DVDRAMs and allow writes; well I 
>can mount and read the UDF file system fine, but am not allowed writes.  I have 
>UDF2.0 on the disk, because it didn't recognize UDF2.1.
>
> Also, when I  make xconfig,  it includes UDF support, but read-only. 
>(Write-Experimental is grayed-out)
>
> In fstab: /dev/scd1 is mounted to /mnt/dvdram  udf  default 0 0. (paraphrasing)
>
> I need the DVDRAM for backups and file transfers.  Is the problem the driver, the 
>UDF filesystem, my setup, or what?
> --
> C.
>
> The best way out is always through.
>   - Robert Frost  A Servant to Servants, 1914
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

Check that "Experimental " is enabled under "Code Maturity level options",
if you can't find it try using "make menuconfig" instead of "make xconfig"
Note that the UDF-write support option is listed as "Dangerous"... possibly
making things difficult, but then again if you have a DVD-RAM,
how bad can things be :)

Cheers,

Jeremy

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Zero Copy IO

2001-04-09 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Douglas Gilbert wrote:

> "Alex Q Chen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > I am trying to find a way to pin down user space
> > memory from kernel, so that these user space buffer
> > can be used for direct IO transfer or otherwise
> > known as "zero copying IO".  Searching through the
> > Internet and reading comments on various news groups,
> > it would appear that most developers including Linus
> > himself doesn't believe in the benefit of "zero
> > copying IO".  Most of the discussion however was based
> > on network card drivers.  For certain other drivers
> > such as SCSI Tape driver, which need to handle great
> > deal of data transfer, it would seemed still be more
> > advantageous to enable zero copy IO than copy_from_user()
> > and copy_to_user() all the data.  Other OS such as AIX
> > and OS2 have kernel functions that can be used to
> > accomplish such a task.  Has any ground work been done
> > in Linux 2.4 to enable "zero copying IO"?
>
> Alex,
> The kiobufs mechanism in the 2.4 series is the appropriate
> tool for avoiding copy_from_user() and copy_to_user().
> The definitive driver is in drivers/char/raw.c which
> does synchronous IO to block devices such as disks
> (but is probably not appropriate for tapes).
>
> The SCSI generic (sg) driver supports direct IO. The driver
> in lk 2.4.3 has the direct IO code commented out while
> a version that I'm currently testing (sg 3.1.18 at
> www.torque.net/sg) has its direct IO code activated. I have
> a web page comparing throughput times and CPU utilizations
> at http://www.torque.net/sg/rbuf_tbl.html . My testing
> indicates that the kiobufs mechanism is now working
> quite well. For various reasons I still think that it
> is best to default to indirect IO and let speed hungry
> users enable dio (which is done in sg via procfs). Even
> when the user selects direct IO is should be possible to
> fall back to indirect IO. [Sg does this when a SCSI
> adapter can't support direct IO (e.g. an ISA adapter).]
>
> Since the SCSI tape (st) driver is structurally similar
> to sg, it should be possible to add direct IO support
> to st.
>
> One thing to note is that when you let the user provide
> the buffer for direct IO (e.g. with malloc) then on
> the i386 it won't be contiguous from a bus address POV.
> This means large scatter gather lists (typically with
> each element 4 KB on i386) which can be time consuming
> to load on some SCSI adapters. One way around this would
> be for a driver to provide "malloc/free" like ioctls.

I'm not very knowledgeable, but doesn't the sound driver
use mmap() to do this?  Either way,  AGP GART is
basically a paged-MMU allowing non-contiguous phys-mem
to be made to look contiguous from the AGP *and* from PCI
(on most chipsets?).  perhaps this would be helpful.

Large contiguous phys-mem seems to be difficult currently,
but would be nice as it would allow use of larger MMU pages
with many cpus.  Someone mentioned reverse page table support
would be required first...

>
> Doug Gilbert
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Zero Copy IO

2001-04-09 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Douglas Gilbert wrote:

 "Alex Q Chen" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  I am trying to find a way to pin down user space
  memory from kernel, so that these user space buffer
  can be used for direct IO transfer or otherwise
  known as "zero copying IO".  Searching through the
  Internet and reading comments on various news groups,
  it would appear that most developers including Linus
  himself doesn't believe in the benefit of "zero
  copying IO".  Most of the discussion however was based
  on network card drivers.  For certain other drivers
  such as SCSI Tape driver, which need to handle great
  deal of data transfer, it would seemed still be more
  advantageous to enable zero copy IO than copy_from_user()
  and copy_to_user() all the data.  Other OS such as AIX
  and OS2 have kernel functions that can be used to
  accomplish such a task.  Has any ground work been done
  in Linux 2.4 to enable "zero copying IO"?

 Alex,
 The kiobufs mechanism in the 2.4 series is the appropriate
 tool for avoiding copy_from_user() and copy_to_user().
 The definitive driver is in drivers/char/raw.c which
 does synchronous IO to block devices such as disks
 (but is probably not appropriate for tapes).

 The SCSI generic (sg) driver supports direct IO. The driver
 in lk 2.4.3 has the direct IO code commented out while
 a version that I'm currently testing (sg 3.1.18 at
 www.torque.net/sg) has its direct IO code activated. I have
 a web page comparing throughput times and CPU utilizations
 at http://www.torque.net/sg/rbuf_tbl.html . My testing
 indicates that the kiobufs mechanism is now working
 quite well. For various reasons I still think that it
 is best to default to indirect IO and let speed hungry
 users enable dio (which is done in sg via procfs). Even
 when the user selects direct IO is should be possible to
 fall back to indirect IO. [Sg does this when a SCSI
 adapter can't support direct IO (e.g. an ISA adapter).]

 Since the SCSI tape (st) driver is structurally similar
 to sg, it should be possible to add direct IO support
 to st.

 One thing to note is that when you let the user provide
 the buffer for direct IO (e.g. with malloc) then on
 the i386 it won't be contiguous from a bus address POV.
 This means large scatter gather lists (typically with
 each element 4 KB on i386) which can be time consuming
 to load on some SCSI adapters. One way around this would
 be for a driver to provide "malloc/free" like ioctls.

I'm not very knowledgeable, but doesn't the sound driver
use mmap() to do this?  Either way,  AGP GART is
basically a paged-MMU allowing non-contiguous phys-mem
to be made to look contiguous from the AGP *and* from PCI
(on most chipsets?).  perhaps this would be helpful.

Large contiguous phys-mem seems to be difficult currently,
but would be nice as it would allow use of larger MMU pages
with many cpus.  Someone mentioned reverse page table support
would be required first...


 Doug Gilbert
 -
 To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
 the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
 Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Userspace TCP sequence number control?

2001-04-05 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Hello,

If there's a forum more specifically dedicated to 2.4 networking,
please point me in the right direction, otherwise please consider
the following.  (I'm on lkml so you don't need to CC: me)

Is there a way to set the sequence number sent in the SYN
response to an incoming connnection request (an incoming
SYN) to a specific value with listen()?

It may sound like a security risk, but consider the problem
of trying to do http load balancing using 2.4 netfilter,
(ie in kernel, packet/conntrack-based) but trying to maintain session
affinity
to a specific backend server.

Clearly, the load balancer must open a http (and thus TCP)
connection to determine the client that is connecting, in order
to determine which back-end server is already servicing
the user session.   Typically, from this point on, the load balancer
must just copy the data back and forth between the socket
connected to the client and another socket.  This could be
userspace or kernelspace, but it's copying either way.

What if the connection could be handed off via
DNAT *after* it had been established?  The load
balancer could establish a connection with the backend
server, posing as the client, setup an iptable entry
directing the client connection's packets to the
backend server, then close it's connection
(somehow without sending FIN)...

the (big) part missing is that the backend server's
sequence number will differ from the one used
by the load-balancer.  (whereas the load balancer
can just copy the last sequence number recieved
by the client)

Does this functionality exist already?  Or can
iptables re-write the sequence numbers ?
(Cisco's PIX does this to re-randomize them
for hosts inside firewall that have poor random
number generation)

Am I talking crazy talk already?
(I know I should research the tunneling
method more)

Regards,

Jeremy

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Userspace TCP sequence number control?

2001-04-05 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Hello,

If there's a forum more specifically dedicated to 2.4 networking,
please point me in the right direction, otherwise please consider
the following.  (I'm on lkml so you don't need to CC: me)

Is there a way to set the sequence number sent in the SYN
response to an incoming connnection request (an incoming
SYN) to a specific value with listen()?

It may sound like a security risk, but consider the problem
of trying to do http load balancing using 2.4 netfilter,
(ie in kernel, packet/conntrack-based) but trying to maintain session
affinity
to a specific backend server.

Clearly, the load balancer must open a http (and thus TCP)
connection to determine the client that is connecting, in order
to determine which back-end server is already servicing
the user session.   Typically, from this point on, the load balancer
must just copy the data back and forth between the socket
connected to the client and another socket.  This could be
userspace or kernelspace, but it's copying either way.

What if the connection could be handed off via
DNAT *after* it had been established?  The load
balancer could establish a connection with the backend
server, posing as the client, setup an iptable entry
directing the client connection's packets to the
backend server, then close it's connection
(somehow without sending FIN)...

the (big) part missing is that the backend server's
sequence number will differ from the one used
by the load-balancer.  (whereas the load balancer
can just copy the last sequence number recieved
by the client)

Does this functionality exist already?  Or can
iptables re-write the sequence numbers ?
(Cisco's PIX does this to re-randomize them
for hosts inside firewall that have poor random
number generation)

Am I talking crazy talk already?
(I know I should research the tunneling
method more)

Regards,

Jeremy

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: /proc/config idea

2001-04-03 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Alan Cox wrote:

> > a module for 2.4.3 will work for any 2.4.3 kernel that supports modules
> > at all (except for the SMP vs UP issue) so it's not the same thing as
> > trying to figure out which if the 2.4.3 kernels matches what you are
> > running.
>
> Nope. The 2.4 kernel ABI depends upon a mixture of config options including the
> cpu type, as well as the compiler version being used. The API is intended to
> be constant throughout 2.4 (but isnt yet totally solid due to bug fixing
> activity). We don't care about the ABI because we are source code based
>

Is it possible to identify *all* the dependencies and include symbols (or by some
other
method) have these dependencies checked by insmod?  It would be simply
smashing to have it all inherently bullet proof. (i know never say never, but
lower maintenance then or simpler for users or something)

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: /proc/config idea

2001-04-03 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Alan Cox wrote:

  a module for 2.4.3 will work for any 2.4.3 kernel that supports modules
  at all (except for the SMP vs UP issue) so it's not the same thing as
  trying to figure out which if the 2.4.3 kernels matches what you are
  running.

 Nope. The 2.4 kernel ABI depends upon a mixture of config options including the
 cpu type, as well as the compiler version being used. The API is intended to
 be constant throughout 2.4 (but isnt yet totally solid due to bug fixing
 activity). We don't care about the ABI because we are source code based


Is it possible to identify *all* the dependencies and include symbols (or by some
other
method) have these dependencies checked by insmod?  It would be simply
smashing to have it all inherently bullet proof. (i know never say never, but
lower maintenance then or simpler for users or something)

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: /proc/config idea

2001-04-02 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Jeff Garzik wrote:

> Jeremy Jackson wrote:
> > Yes, I like this.  I do this manually, it allows reproducability, and
> > incremental
> > modifications, tracing how that kernel on that problem system was made...
> >
> > I think the ultimate would be to put all of .config (gzipped?) in a new ELF
> > section without the Loadable attribute...  I wish System.map was the same.
> > The you're guaranteed you know how a kernel on disk was configured.
> >
> > To correlate a running kernel to one on disk (vmlinuz) you have LILO...
> > it appends an environment variable to the kernel command line with
> > the name of the file it booted.  This is not infallable, since LILO maps
> > disk sectors, only using the filesystem at map install time.
> >
> > Permaps an md5sum of the .text ELF section would conclusively
> > link the in-core kernel with an on-disk vmlinuz?  Shouldn't be hard
> > to do with objcopy and /proc/kmem?
> [...]
> > Comments anyone?
>
> Instead of doing all this stuff in the kernel, you could simply update
> symlinks to properly installed files at boot time.
>
> Putting _files_ in the kernel is plain silly.  This is unreclaimable

not in the kernel in an ELF section, marked not loadable.  it never leaves the
disk.
as someone else posted, it's ~900 bytes gzipped (if you want to have it in core)

unfortunately (in the LILO case) x86 doesn't boot an ELF image... (oops)

>
> memory, folks.  There is no need to special case an operation as simple

If you have a lot of kernels around, which Config-2.4.3 applies to kernel 2.4.3
given 5 to choose from...the idea (same for System.map) is that it being in the
same
file they can't be confused.  Kinda like forks under Mac (but let's not go there
now)

>
> as reading a file.  [I think this about firmware images too, but that's
> another thread]

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: /proc/config idea

2001-04-02 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Ian Soboroff wrote:

> [sorry this doesn't have proper References: headers, i read the list
> off the hypermail archive.]
>
> there was some discussion of whether the kernel should emit a
> /proc/config or some such for purposes of bug reporting, but that
> seems to be a lot of bloat.
>
> instead, why not try to point to a canonical location for a config
> copy (we already basically do this with ksymoops and System.map), and
> instead have a /proc/config-hash which emits a (precomputed) MD5 hash
> of the .config file it was compiled with?
>
> this way, you could check possible configs (Debian for example likes
> to stash a copy in /boot, like System.map) and also know if they were

Yes, I like this.  I do this manually, it allows reproducability, and
incremental
modifications, tracing how that kernel on that problem system was made...

I think the ultimate would be to put all of .config (gzipped?) in a new ELF
section without the Loadable attribute...  I wish System.map was the same.
The you're guaranteed you know how a kernel on disk was configured.

To correlate a running kernel to one on disk (vmlinuz) you have LILO...
it appends an environment variable to the kernel command line with
the name of the file it booted.  This is not infallable, since LILO maps
disk sectors, only using the filesystem at map install time.

Permaps an md5sum of the .text ELF section would conclusively
link the in-core kernel with an on-disk vmlinuz?  Shouldn't be hard
to do with objcopy and /proc/kmem?

>
> the right ones.
>
> the one problem that comes to mind right now is modules, which needn't
> correspond to a full kernel .config.

Well it's a step...

Comments anyone?


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: /proc/config idea

2001-04-02 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Ian Soboroff wrote:

 [sorry this doesn't have proper References: headers, i read the list
 off the hypermail archive.]

 there was some discussion of whether the kernel should emit a
 /proc/config or some such for purposes of bug reporting, but that
 seems to be a lot of bloat.

 instead, why not try to point to a canonical location for a config
 copy (we already basically do this with ksymoops and System.map), and
 instead have a /proc/config-hash which emits a (precomputed) MD5 hash
 of the .config file it was compiled with?

 this way, you could check possible configs (Debian for example likes
 to stash a copy in /boot, like System.map) and also know if they were

Yes, I like this.  I do this manually, it allows reproducability, and
incremental
modifications, tracing how that kernel on that problem system was made...

I think the ultimate would be to put all of .config (gzipped?) in a new ELF
section without the Loadable attribute...  I wish System.map was the same.
The you're guaranteed you know how a kernel on disk was configured.

To correlate a running kernel to one on disk (vmlinuz) you have LILO...
it appends an environment variable to the kernel command line with
the name of the file it booted.  This is not infallable, since LILO maps
disk sectors, only using the filesystem at map install time.

Permaps an md5sum of the .text ELF section would conclusively
link the in-core kernel with an on-disk vmlinuz?  Shouldn't be hard
to do with objcopy and /proc/kmem?


 the right ones.

 the one problem that comes to mind right now is modules, which needn't
 correspond to a full kernel .config.

Well it's a step...

Comments anyone?


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: /proc/config idea

2001-04-02 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Jeff Garzik wrote:

 Jeremy Jackson wrote:
  Yes, I like this.  I do this manually, it allows reproducability, and
  incremental
  modifications, tracing how that kernel on that problem system was made...
 
  I think the ultimate would be to put all of .config (gzipped?) in a new ELF
  section without the Loadable attribute...  I wish System.map was the same.
  The you're guaranteed you know how a kernel on disk was configured.
 
  To correlate a running kernel to one on disk (vmlinuz) you have LILO...
  it appends an environment variable to the kernel command line with
  the name of the file it booted.  This is not infallable, since LILO maps
  disk sectors, only using the filesystem at map install time.
 
  Permaps an md5sum of the .text ELF section would conclusively
  link the in-core kernel with an on-disk vmlinuz?  Shouldn't be hard
  to do with objcopy and /proc/kmem?
 [...]
  Comments anyone?

 Instead of doing all this stuff in the kernel, you could simply update
 symlinks to properly installed files at boot time.

 Putting _files_ in the kernel is plain silly.  This is unreclaimable

not in the kernel in an ELF section, marked not loadable.  it never leaves the
disk.
as someone else posted, it's ~900 bytes gzipped (if you want to have it in core)

unfortunately (in the LILO case) x86 doesn't boot an ELF image... (oops)


 memory, folks.  There is no need to special case an operation as simple

If you have a lot of kernels around, which Config-2.4.3 applies to kernel 2.4.3
given 5 to choose from...the idea (same for System.map) is that it being in the
same
file they can't be confused.  Kinda like forks under Mac (but let's not go there
now)


 as reading a file.  [I think this about firmware images too, but that's
 another thread]

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Linux Worm (fwd)

2001-03-23 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Dax Kelson wrote:

> Gerhard Mack said once upon a time (Fri, 23 Mar 2001):
>
> > On Fri, 23 Mar 2001, Bob Lorenzini wrote:
> >
> > > I'm annoyed when persons post virus alerts to unrelated lists but this
> > > is a serious threat. If your offended flame away.
> >
> > This should be a wake up call... distributions need to stop using product
> > with consistently bad security records.
>
> This TSIG bug in BIND 8 that is being exploited was added to BIND 8 by the
> same team who wrote BIND 9.
>
> In fact the last two major remote root compromises (TSIG and NXT) for BIND
> 8 was in code added to BIND 8 by the BIND 9 developers.

You could say new code in general causes security holes... don't fix it
and you won't break it.   There is the security principle of least privilege
though...
RH7 (and earlier I think) run bind drops root and runs as user named after
opening
a listening socket, so I don't think a bind
compromise could retrieve the /etc/shadow file and modify system binaries...
and RH7.1(beta) will use capabilities to furthur restrict privileges given to
bind(v9).
(not root ever)

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Linux Worm (fwd)

2001-03-23 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Dax Kelson wrote:

 Gerhard Mack said once upon a time (Fri, 23 Mar 2001):

  On Fri, 23 Mar 2001, Bob Lorenzini wrote:
 
   I'm annoyed when persons post virus alerts to unrelated lists but this
   is a serious threat. If your offended flame away.
 
  This should be a wake up call... distributions need to stop using product
  with consistently bad security records.

 This TSIG bug in BIND 8 that is being exploited was added to BIND 8 by the
 same team who wrote BIND 9.

 In fact the last two major remote root compromises (TSIG and NXT) for BIND
 8 was in code added to BIND 8 by the BIND 9 developers.

You could say new code in general causes security holes... don't fix it
and you won't break it.   There is the security principle of least privilege
though...
RH7 (and earlier I think) run bind drops root and runs as user named after
opening
a listening socket, so I don't think a bind
compromise could retrieve the /etc/shadow file and modify system binaries...
and RH7.1(beta) will use capabilities to furthur restrict privileges given to
bind(v9).
(not root ever)

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: UDMA 100 / PIIX4 question

2001-03-20 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Holger Lubitz wrote:

> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 19 Mar 2001 12:17:38 -0800
> > Tim Moore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > > Apologies for the too brief answer.  Sustained real world transfer rates
> > > for the PIIX4 under ideal
> > > setup conditions and a quiet bus are 14-18MB/s.
>
> I dare to disagree. These numbers are from an Asus P2L97-DS (Dual P2,
> Intel 440LX chipset with PIIX4) with an IBM DTLA 307045:

Yes this is why I originally replied to the post... but he's not using a PIIXx at
all,
but the IDE chip on an Intel 815 motherboard.  I'm not sure if they use the same
driver
, but I don't think so.

>
>
> /dev/hda5:
>  Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  1.21 seconds =105.79 MB/sec
>  Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  2.30 seconds = 27.83 MB/sec
>
> /dev/hda5 is the outermost linux partition, starting at cyl 256.
>
> (if you don't count hdparm measurements as real world transfer rates -
> linear read as measured by bonnie is 26.3 MB/s).
>
> > There is a Win partition - so I do not think I am at the start of the drive.
> >
> > Then  hdparm -tT /dev/hda
> >
> > /dev/hda:
> >  Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  1.04 seconds =123.08 MB/sec
> >  Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  4.08 seconds = 15.69 MB/sec
>
> Would your windows partition by any chance be at the beginning of the
> disk?
> hdparm speed measurements differ by filesystem (i have no idea why,

this is false.  They may differ by partition, since different parts (zones) of a
modern disk have different recording densities and therefore transfer rates.
IBM's spec sheet says rates vary from 15MB/sec to 31MB/sec... it he's seeing
15MB/sec, maybe he should try the other end of the disk.  can you verify this?
try hdparm -t /dev/hda1 instead of hda5 (if those are on opposite ends of the
disk)

include output of fdisk so we can see partition layout, and results of hdparm on
different areas.

>
> since they don't go through it - maybe some interaction with the
> buffering code).
>
> if you are testing a windows partition, you can expect to see
> significantly lower values for hdparm:
>
> /dev/hda1:
>  Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  1.65 seconds = 77.58 MB/sec
>  Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  3.48 seconds = 18.39 MB/sec

please show us your partition table.

>
>
> Remarkably /dev/hda benches slightly better, even though the 64 MB read
> are nearly the same as for hda1:
>
> /dev/hda:
>  Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  1.40 seconds = 91.43 MB/sec
>  Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  3.06 seconds = 20.92 MB/sec
>
> I also noticed that operations on a lot of files (like scanning for all
> files in a filesystem as done by updatedb) got really slow with the 2.4
> vfat fs, with a very high percentage (in the 90s) of CPU time attributed
> to "system". Has anybody else noticed this?

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: IDE DMA resets with ALI15X3 on Aladdin V

2001-03-20 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Jules Bean wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have an intermittent problem with my IDE setup:
>
> pear# dmesg | grep -i ide
> Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 6.31
> ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with
> idebus=xx
> ALI15X3: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 78
> ide0: BM-DMA at 0xffa0-0xffa7, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
> ide1: BM-DMA at 0xffa8-0xffaf, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA
> ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
> ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
> scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
> {snip}
>
> It works absolutely fine under normal load; I see the very occasional
>
> Mar 18 12:23:01 pear kernel: hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady
> SeekComplete Error }
> Mar 18 12:23:01 pear kernel: hda: dma_intr: error=0x84 {
> DriveStatusError BadCRC }
>

This is clue #1 - BadCRC

>
> but they don't seem to affect performance.
>
> However, very occasionally, normally when the HD is under very heavy
> load, I get messages like this:
>
> Mar 20 10:24:05 pear kernel: hda: timeout waiting for DMA
> Mar 20 10:24:05 pear kernel: ide_dmaproc: chipset supported
> ide_dma_timeout func only: 14
> Mar 20 10:24:05 pear kernel: hda: irq timeout: status=0x58 {
> DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
> Mar 20 10:24:05 pear kernel: hda: status timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }
> Mar 20 10:24:05 pear kernel: hda: drive not ready for command
> Mar 20 10:24:05 pear kernel: ide0: reset: success
>
> This is accompanied by a freeze of the machine, which in this
> particular instance sorted itself out.  Sometimes, the machine goes
> down hard, causing some disk corruption (always minor, thankfully, so
> far).
>
> This all sounds very like that described in the thread which starts at
> http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0006.1/0924.html
> although he didn't seem to get an actually crashes from it.
>
> Sometimes I also hear alarming clicking sounds from the disk; on those

This is clue #2.

>
> occasions, the crash is hard, and the machine has to be reset.
>
> Is this a hardware fault?  I would think so, except for the
> intermittent dma_intr errors suggesting there could be a motherboard
> problem too?
>
> The disk is as follows:
>
> pear# cat /proc/ide/hda/model
> Maxtor 91080D5

If memory serves me correctly, this disk is the same model as
one I send back for RMA... I think your disk is toast.
you could try using badblocks to scan it, prefferably in read-write
mode (you'll have to move your data to another disk first, of course,
since this erases data)  You could try just a read scan first.
The clicking is likely the drive trying to re-read the bad sectors.
You should try to exchange it under warranty, before your data
disappears.

You could try using an Ultra-DMA 66 cable to improve signal quality,
even though this chipset (I think) only supports UDMA33.  Also,
try it with the drive by itsself (not sharing cable with a cdrom or
another disk) on an interface.

Cheers,

Jeremy

>
>
> (It does normally seem to be that disk, but the other disk is much
> smaller anyhow).
>
> I do also sometime see problems with hdd, which is an ATAPI
> cd-rom. This normally happens after there's been some problem with
> hda, and I get:

{snip}

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: IDE DMA resets with ALI15X3 on Aladdin V

2001-03-20 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Jules Bean wrote:

 Hi,

 I have an intermittent problem with my IDE setup:

 pear# dmesg | grep -i ide
 Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 6.31
 ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with
 idebus=xx
 ALI15X3: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 78
 ide0: BM-DMA at 0xffa0-0xffa7, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
 ide1: BM-DMA at 0xffa8-0xffaf, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA
 ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
 ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
 scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
 {snip}

 It works absolutely fine under normal load; I see the very occasional

 Mar 18 12:23:01 pear kernel: hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady
 SeekComplete Error }
 Mar 18 12:23:01 pear kernel: hda: dma_intr: error=0x84 {
 DriveStatusError BadCRC }


This is clue #1 - BadCRC


 but they don't seem to affect performance.

 However, very occasionally, normally when the HD is under very heavy
 load, I get messages like this:

 Mar 20 10:24:05 pear kernel: hda: timeout waiting for DMA
 Mar 20 10:24:05 pear kernel: ide_dmaproc: chipset supported
 ide_dma_timeout func only: 14
 Mar 20 10:24:05 pear kernel: hda: irq timeout: status=0x58 {
 DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
 Mar 20 10:24:05 pear kernel: hda: status timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }
 Mar 20 10:24:05 pear kernel: hda: drive not ready for command
 Mar 20 10:24:05 pear kernel: ide0: reset: success

 This is accompanied by a freeze of the machine, which in this
 particular instance sorted itself out.  Sometimes, the machine goes
 down hard, causing some disk corruption (always minor, thankfully, so
 far).

 This all sounds very like that described in the thread which starts at
 http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0006.1/0924.html
 although he didn't seem to get an actually crashes from it.

 Sometimes I also hear alarming clicking sounds from the disk; on those

This is clue #2.


 occasions, the crash is hard, and the machine has to be reset.

 Is this a hardware fault?  I would think so, except for the
 intermittent dma_intr errors suggesting there could be a motherboard
 problem too?

 The disk is as follows:

 pear# cat /proc/ide/hda/model
 Maxtor 91080D5

If memory serves me correctly, this disk is the same model as
one I send back for RMA... I think your disk is toast.
you could try using badblocks to scan it, prefferably in read-write
mode (you'll have to move your data to another disk first, of course,
since this erases data)  You could try just a read scan first.
The clicking is likely the drive trying to re-read the bad sectors.
You should try to exchange it under warranty, before your data
disappears.

You could try using an Ultra-DMA 66 cable to improve signal quality,
even though this chipset (I think) only supports UDMA33.  Also,
try it with the drive by itsself (not sharing cable with a cdrom or
another disk) on an interface.

Cheers,

Jeremy



 (It does normally seem to be that disk, but the other disk is much
 smaller anyhow).

 I do also sometime see problems with hdd, which is an ATAPI
 cd-rom. This normally happens after there's been some problem with
 hda, and I get:

{snip}

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: UDMA 100 / PIIX4 question

2001-03-20 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Holger Lubitz wrote:

 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
  On Mon, 19 Mar 2001 12:17:38 -0800
  Tim Moore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
   Apologies for the too brief answer.  Sustained real world transfer rates
   for the PIIX4 under ideal
   setup conditions and a quiet bus are 14-18MB/s.

 I dare to disagree. These numbers are from an Asus P2L97-DS (Dual P2,
 Intel 440LX chipset with PIIX4) with an IBM DTLA 307045:

Yes this is why I originally replied to the post... but he's not using a PIIXx at
all,
but the IDE chip on an Intel 815 motherboard.  I'm not sure if they use the same
driver
, but I don't think so.



 /dev/hda5:
  Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  1.21 seconds =105.79 MB/sec
  Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  2.30 seconds = 27.83 MB/sec

 /dev/hda5 is the outermost linux partition, starting at cyl 256.

 (if you don't count hdparm measurements as real world transfer rates -
 linear read as measured by bonnie is 26.3 MB/s).

  There is a Win partition - so I do not think I am at the start of the drive.
 
  Then  hdparm -tT /dev/hda
 
  /dev/hda:
   Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  1.04 seconds =123.08 MB/sec
   Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  4.08 seconds = 15.69 MB/sec

 Would your windows partition by any chance be at the beginning of the
 disk?
 hdparm speed measurements differ by filesystem (i have no idea why,

this is false.  They may differ by partition, since different parts (zones) of a
modern disk have different recording densities and therefore transfer rates.
IBM's spec sheet says rates vary from 15MB/sec to 31MB/sec... it he's seeing
15MB/sec, maybe he should try the other end of the disk.  can you verify this?
try hdparm -t /dev/hda1 instead of hda5 (if those are on opposite ends of the
disk)

include output of fdisk so we can see partition layout, and results of hdparm on
different areas.


 since they don't go through it - maybe some interaction with the
 buffering code).

 if you are testing a windows partition, you can expect to see
 significantly lower values for hdparm:

 /dev/hda1:
  Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  1.65 seconds = 77.58 MB/sec
  Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  3.48 seconds = 18.39 MB/sec

please show us your partition table.



 Remarkably /dev/hda benches slightly better, even though the 64 MB read
 are nearly the same as for hda1:

 /dev/hda:
  Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  1.40 seconds = 91.43 MB/sec
  Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  3.06 seconds = 20.92 MB/sec

 I also noticed that operations on a lot of files (like scanning for all
 files in a filesystem as done by updatedb) got really slow with the 2.4
 vfat fs, with a very high percentage (in the 90s) of CPU time attributed
 to "system". Has anybody else noticed this?

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Linux should better cope with power failure

2001-03-19 Thread Jeremy Jackson

"Richard B. Johnson" wrote:

> On Mon, 19 Mar 2001, Brian Gerst wrote:
> [SNIPPED...]
>
> >
> > At the very least the disk should be consistent with memory.  If the
> > dirty pages aren't written back to the disk (but not necessarily removed
> > from memory) after a reasonable idle period, then there is room for
> > improvement.
> >
>
> Hmmm. Now think about it a minute. You have a database operation
> with a few hundred files open, most of which will be deleted after
> a sort/merge completes. At the same time, you've got a few thousand
> directories with their ATIME being updated. Also, you have thousands
> of temporary files being created in /tmp during a compile that didn't
> use "-pipe".
>
> If you periodically write everything to disk, you don't have many
> CPU cycles available to do anything useful.
>
> It is up to the application to decide if anything is 'precious'.
> If you've got some database running, it's got to be checkpointed
> with some "commitable" file-system so it can be interrupted at any time.
>
> If you make your file-systems up of "slices", you can mount the
> executable stuff read/only. Currently, only /var and /tmp need to
> be writable for normal use, plus any user "slices", of course.
>  -- Yes I know you need to modify /etc/stuff occasionally (startup
> and shutdown, plus an occasional password change). I proposed
> a long time ago that /etc/mtab get moved to /var.

so how does mount update /var/mtab when mounting var? he he.

Actually, I think /etc/mtab is not needed at all.   Originally, UNIX
used to put as much onto the disk (and not in "core") as possible.
so much state information related only to one boot-cycle was
taken out of kernel and stored on disk.  /var/run/utmp, /etc/mtab,
, rmtab,  and many others.  all are invalidated by a reboot, and are yet
stored
in non-volatile storage.  kernel memory is not swappable, so they manually
separated out the minimum needed in core.

Linux currently has a lot of this info in core, and maintains the disk files
for backwards compatibility.  in the case of /etc/mtab, I believe
/proc/mounts
has the same info.  It appears to be in the same format as /etc/mtab,
so most of the groundwork has already been done.
i've considered trying just changing /etc/mtab to /proc/mounts in some
utilities, to remove the need for read-write root.  This (and other cases)
would guarantee consistency (look at /etc/mtab after restart in single
user more - ugh)

I wonder if embedded folks would like to at least keep the old behaviour
as a compile-time option;  they're in almost the same boat as early (64k
core memory) unix folks.

My favorite compromise between journaling and performance is the
compaq smart array controllers, with a battery-backed sram
write cache;  they can do (fast)lazy writes and still be perfectly reliable.
plus they keep *everything* reliable, not just metadata.

I find this a fascinating topic... the ultimate would be to use the nvram
(it's mostly empty if using LinuxBIOS)  to store a clean shutdown flag,
and/or a system heartbeat timestamp (like syslogd's)... only this timestamp
would let the hdd spin down (not hit every 20 minutes or so with a timestamp
log entry) and not wear out a flash disk based system.

Regards,

Jeremy

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Linux should better cope with power failure

2001-03-19 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Brian Gerst wrote:

> "Richard B. Johnson" wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 19 Mar 2001, Otto Wyss wrote:
> >
> > > Lately I had an USB failure, leaving me without any access to my system
> > > since I only use an USB-keyboard/-mouse. All I could do in that
> > > situation was switching power off and on after a few minutes of
> > > inactivity. From the impression I got during the following startup, I
> > > assume Linux (2.4.2, EXT2-filesystem) is not very suited to any power
> > > failiure or manually switching it off. Not even if there wasn't any
> > > activity going on.
> > >
> > > Shouldn't a good system allways try to be on the save side? Shouldn't
> > > Linux try to be more fail save? There is currently much work done in
> > > getting high performance during high activity but it seems there is no
> > > work done at all in getting a save system during low/no activity. I
> > > think this is a major drawback and should be addressed as fast as
> > > possible. Bringing a system to save state should allway have a high priority.
> > >
> > > How could this be accomplished:
> > > 1. Flush any dirty cache pages as soon as possible. There may not be any
> > > dirty cache after a certain amount of idle time.
> > > 2. Keep open files in a state where it doesn't matter if they where
> > > improperly closed (if possible).
> > > 3. Swap may not contain anything which can't be discarded. Otherwise
> > > swap has to be treated as ordinary disk space.
> > >
> > > These actions are not filesystem dependant. It might be that certain
> > > filesystem cope better with power failiure than others but still it's
> > > much better not to have errors instead to fix them.
> > >
> > > Don't we tell children never go close to any abyss or doesn't have
> > > alpinist a saying "never go to the limits"? So why is this simple rule
> > > always broken with computers?
> > >
> >
> > Unix and other such variants have what's called a Virtual File System
> > (VFS).  The idea behind this is to keep as much recently-used file stuff
> > in memory so that the system can be as fast as if you used a RAM disk
> > instead of real physical (slow) hard disks. If you can't cope with this,
> > use DOS.
>
> At the very least the disk should be consistent with memory.  If the
> dirty pages aren't written back to the disk (but not necessarily removed
> from memory) after a reasonable idle period, then there is room for
> improvement.

They are.   If you leave your machine one for a minute or so (probably less is ok,
but I don't know) the kernel will flush dirty buffers... fsck will complain, but the
file's
*data* blocks will be on the disk.  There are way more reasons that this is a silly
and annoying thread.  You should read more about things like
asynchronous/synchronous filesystems,
lazy-write cacheing, etc, etc,.  If you know how to write software and/or configure
your system,
you can avoid all of these problems.  Or use a journaling filesystem ext3/xfs, etc.
But I tire of this...

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: UDMA 100 / PIIX4 question

2001-03-19 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Tim Moore wrote:

> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > I have an IBM DTLA 307030 (ATA 100 / UDMA 5) on an 815e board (Asus CUSL2), which 
>has a PIIX4 controller.
> > ...
> > My problem is that (according to hdparm -t), I never get a better transfer rate 
>than approximately 15.8 Mb/sec.  I achieve this when DMA is enabled, - without it I 
>fall back to about 5 Mb /sec.  No amount of fiddling with other hdparm settings makes 
>any difference.
> > ...
>
> 15MB/s for hdparm is about right.

You should be able to get about 30 MB/s at the start of the disk (zone 0) according to 
IBM's datasheet at

http://ssdweb01.storage.ibm.com/techsup/hddtech/prodspec/dtla_spw.pdf

so if you were testing say /dev/hda1 which is at the start of the disk it should be 
faster.

Try hdparm -i /dev/hda (or whatever) .. . note the reported MaxMultSect= value,
and put it in place of X in command:

hdparm -u 1 -d 1 -m X -c 1 /dev/hda

Cheers,

Jeremy

PS - please let me know if this fixed your problem, since I have a system
with the same motherboard.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: UDMA 100 / PIIX4 question

2001-03-19 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Tim Moore wrote:

> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > I have an IBM DTLA 307030 (ATA 100 / UDMA 5) on an 815e board (Asus CUSL2), which 
>has a PIIX4 controller.
> > ...
> > My problem is that (according to hdparm -t), I never get a better transfer rate 
>than approximately 15.8 Mb/sec.  I achieve this when DMA is enabled, - without it I 
>fall back to about 5 Mb /sec.  No amount of fiddling with other hdparm settings makes 
>any difference.
> > ...
>
> 15MB/s for hdparm is about right.

Yes, since hdparm -t measures *SUSTAINED* transfers... the actual "head rate" of data 
reads from
disk surface.  Only if you read *only* data that is alread in harddrive's cache will 
you get a speed
close to the UDMA mode of the drive/controller.  The cache is around 1Mbyte, so for a 
split-second
re-read of some data

>
>
> "...four IDE devices can be supported in Bus Master mode.
>  PIIX4 contains support for "Ultra DMA/33" synchronous DMA
>  compatible devices."
>
> http://developer.intel.com/design/intarch/techinfo/440BX/PIIX4_intro.htm
>
> --
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: UDMA 100 / PIIX4 question

2001-03-19 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Tim Moore wrote:

 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  I have an IBM DTLA 307030 (ATA 100 / UDMA 5) on an 815e board (Asus CUSL2), which 
has a PIIX4 controller.
  ...
  My problem is that (according to hdparm -t), I never get a better transfer rate 
than approximately 15.8 Mb/sec.  I achieve this when DMA is enabled, - without it I 
fall back to about 5 Mb /sec.  No amount of fiddling with other hdparm settings makes 
any difference.
  ...

 15MB/s for hdparm is about right.

Yes, since hdparm -t measures *SUSTAINED* transfers... the actual "head rate" of data 
reads from
disk surface.  Only if you read *only* data that is alread in harddrive's cache will 
you get a speed
close to the UDMA mode of the drive/controller.  The cache is around 1Mbyte, so for a 
split-second
re-read of some data



 "...four IDE devices can be supported in Bus Master mode.
  PIIX4 contains support for "Ultra DMA/33" synchronous DMA
  compatible devices."

 http://developer.intel.com/design/intarch/techinfo/440BX/PIIX4_intro.htm

 --
 -
 To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
 the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
 Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: UDMA 100 / PIIX4 question

2001-03-19 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Tim Moore wrote:

 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  I have an IBM DTLA 307030 (ATA 100 / UDMA 5) on an 815e board (Asus CUSL2), which 
has a PIIX4 controller.
  ...
  My problem is that (according to hdparm -t), I never get a better transfer rate 
than approximately 15.8 Mb/sec.  I achieve this when DMA is enabled, - without it I 
fall back to about 5 Mb /sec.  No amount of fiddling with other hdparm settings makes 
any difference.
  ...

 15MB/s for hdparm is about right.

You should be able to get about 30 MB/s at the start of the disk (zone 0) according to 
IBM's datasheet at

http://ssdweb01.storage.ibm.com/techsup/hddtech/prodspec/dtla_spw.pdf

so if you were testing say /dev/hda1 which is at the start of the disk it should be 
faster.

Try hdparm -i /dev/hda (or whatever) .. . note the reported MaxMultSect= value,
and put it in place of X in command:

hdparm -u 1 -d 1 -m X -c 1 /dev/hda

Cheers,

Jeremy

PS - please let me know if this fixed your problem, since I have a system
with the same motherboard.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Linux should better cope with power failure

2001-03-19 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Brian Gerst wrote:

 "Richard B. Johnson" wrote:
 
  On Mon, 19 Mar 2001, Otto Wyss wrote:
 
   Lately I had an USB failure, leaving me without any access to my system
   since I only use an USB-keyboard/-mouse. All I could do in that
   situation was switching power off and on after a few minutes of
   inactivity. From the impression I got during the following startup, I
   assume Linux (2.4.2, EXT2-filesystem) is not very suited to any power
   failiure or manually switching it off. Not even if there wasn't any
   activity going on.
  
   Shouldn't a good system allways try to be on the save side? Shouldn't
   Linux try to be more fail save? There is currently much work done in
   getting high performance during high activity but it seems there is no
   work done at all in getting a save system during low/no activity. I
   think this is a major drawback and should be addressed as fast as
   possible. Bringing a system to save state should allway have a high priority.
  
   How could this be accomplished:
   1. Flush any dirty cache pages as soon as possible. There may not be any
   dirty cache after a certain amount of idle time.
   2. Keep open files in a state where it doesn't matter if they where
   improperly closed (if possible).
   3. Swap may not contain anything which can't be discarded. Otherwise
   swap has to be treated as ordinary disk space.
  
   These actions are not filesystem dependant. It might be that certain
   filesystem cope better with power failiure than others but still it's
   much better not to have errors instead to fix them.
  
   Don't we tell children never go close to any abyss or doesn't have
   alpinist a saying "never go to the limits"? So why is this simple rule
   always broken with computers?
  
 
  Unix and other such variants have what's called a Virtual File System
  (VFS).  The idea behind this is to keep as much recently-used file stuff
  in memory so that the system can be as fast as if you used a RAM disk
  instead of real physical (slow) hard disks. If you can't cope with this,
  use DOS.

 At the very least the disk should be consistent with memory.  If the
 dirty pages aren't written back to the disk (but not necessarily removed
 from memory) after a reasonable idle period, then there is room for
 improvement.

They are.   If you leave your machine one for a minute or so (probably less is ok,
but I don't know) the kernel will flush dirty buffers... fsck will complain, but the
file's
*data* blocks will be on the disk.  There are way more reasons that this is a silly
and annoying thread.  You should read more about things like
asynchronous/synchronous filesystems,
lazy-write cacheing, etc, etc,.  If you know how to write software and/or configure
your system,
you can avoid all of these problems.  Or use a journaling filesystem ext3/xfs, etc.
But I tire of this...

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Linux should better cope with power failure

2001-03-19 Thread Jeremy Jackson

"Richard B. Johnson" wrote:

 On Mon, 19 Mar 2001, Brian Gerst wrote:
 [SNIPPED...]

 
  At the very least the disk should be consistent with memory.  If the
  dirty pages aren't written back to the disk (but not necessarily removed
  from memory) after a reasonable idle period, then there is room for
  improvement.
 

 Hmmm. Now think about it a minute. You have a database operation
 with a few hundred files open, most of which will be deleted after
 a sort/merge completes. At the same time, you've got a few thousand
 directories with their ATIME being updated. Also, you have thousands
 of temporary files being created in /tmp during a compile that didn't
 use "-pipe".

 If you periodically write everything to disk, you don't have many
 CPU cycles available to do anything useful.

 It is up to the application to decide if anything is 'precious'.
 If you've got some database running, it's got to be checkpointed
 with some "commitable" file-system so it can be interrupted at any time.

 If you make your file-systems up of "slices", you can mount the
 executable stuff read/only. Currently, only /var and /tmp need to
 be writable for normal use, plus any user "slices", of course.
  -- Yes I know you need to modify /etc/stuff occasionally (startup
 and shutdown, plus an occasional password change). I proposed
 a long time ago that /etc/mtab get moved to /var.

so how does mount update /var/mtab when mounting var? he he.

Actually, I think /etc/mtab is not needed at all.   Originally, UNIX
used to put as much onto the disk (and not in "core") as possible.
so much state information related only to one boot-cycle was
taken out of kernel and stored on disk.  /var/run/utmp, /etc/mtab,
, rmtab,  and many others.  all are invalidated by a reboot, and are yet
stored
in non-volatile storage.  kernel memory is not swappable, so they manually
separated out the minimum needed in core.

Linux currently has a lot of this info in core, and maintains the disk files
for backwards compatibility.  in the case of /etc/mtab, I believe
/proc/mounts
has the same info.  It appears to be in the same format as /etc/mtab,
so most of the groundwork has already been done.
i've considered trying just changing /etc/mtab to /proc/mounts in some
utilities, to remove the need for read-write root.  This (and other cases)
would guarantee consistency (look at /etc/mtab after restart in single
user more - ugh)

I wonder if embedded folks would like to at least keep the old behaviour
as a compile-time option;  they're in almost the same boat as early (64k
core memory) unix folks.

My favorite compromise between journaling and performance is the
compaq smart array controllers, with a battery-backed sram
write cache;  they can do (fast)lazy writes and still be perfectly reliable.
plus they keep *everything* reliable, not just metadata.

I find this a fascinating topic... the ultimate would be to use the nvram
(it's mostly empty if using LinuxBIOS)  to store a clean shutdown flag,
and/or a system heartbeat timestamp (like syslogd's)... only this timestamp
would let the hdd spin down (not hit every 20 minutes or so with a timestamp
log entry) and not wear out a flash disk based system.

Regards,

Jeremy

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Network init script causes 2.2.18 kernel oops (tulip driver)

2001-03-15 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Matthew Callaway wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> This is a reproducible oops, and my guess is that it's related to
> the tulip driver included in the 2.2.18 source tree.  We're using
> a D-Link 4 port NIC, and it appears that it doesn't work well with
> IPV6 interfaces.

I have had problems with this NIC as well... Redhat's installer/kudzu
tries to use de4x5 (sp?) module ... bad news.  But it works fine using
old_tulip module with only IPv4.  Same with 2.2 series and 2.4 series
kernels. FYI

>
>
> Keywords:  linux kernel-2.2.18 tulip D-Link 4-port NIC DFE-570 TX

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Network init script causes 2.2.18 kernel oops (tulip driver)

2001-03-15 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Matthew Callaway wrote:

 Greetings,

 This is a reproducible oops, and my guess is that it's related to
 the tulip driver included in the 2.2.18 source tree.  We're using
 a D-Link 4 port NIC, and it appears that it doesn't work well with
 IPV6 interfaces.

I have had problems with this NIC as well... Redhat's installer/kudzu
tries to use de4x5 (sp?) module ... bad news.  But it works fine using
old_tulip module with only IPv4.  Same with 2.2 series and 2.4 series
kernels. FYI



 Keywords:  linux kernel-2.2.18 tulip D-Link 4-port NIC DFE-570 TX

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: 2.4 and PPPoE problem

2001-03-12 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Martin Hicks wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm using PPPoE with an i586 machine running 2.4.2.

are you using the kernel pppoe or the user-space one (rp-pppoe, etc)?
did it work on other kernels?

>
>
> The machine connects fine and allows network traffic to pass
> through the link.
>
> However, certain websites seem to choke.
> (notable ones are www.chapters.ca and www.hp.com)
>
> Using Lynx or Netscape I get the same results, a few bytes of
> traffic are received and then nothing (eventually the connection
> times out).
>
> The same does not happen in windows.  (ugh)
>
> I have not encountered any machine that I have telnet/ftp/ssh
> access to that breaks in this way so I can only confirm that http traffic
> is not working.
>
> This gateway machine does masquerading, and internal machines and the external
> machine react the same way.

are you positive the external (2.4.2 machine, right?) acts this way?

you can send me a tcpdump trace of a session or two that chokes.

>
>
> TIA
> mh
>
> Here is some useful info:
>
> mort@galileo:~$ uname -a
> Linux galileo 2.4.2 #4 Thu Feb 22 14:13:23 EST 2001 i586 unknown
>
> mort@galileo:~$ /sbin/ifconfig ppp0
> ppp0  Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
>   inet addr:209.217.122.37  P-t-P:209.217.122.1  Mask:255.255.255.255
>   UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1480  Metric:1
>   RX packets:1272056 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
>   TX packets:1476697 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
>   collisions:0 txqueuelen:3
>   RX bytes:430171737 (410.2 Mb)  TX bytes:1260803415 (1202.3 Mb)
>
> mort@galileo:~$ /sbin/route
> Kernel IP routing table
> Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric RefUse Iface
> magma   *   255.255.255.255 UH0  00 ppp0
> 192.168.69.0*   255.255.255.0   U 0  00 eth0
> default magma   0.0.0.0 UG0  00 ppp0
>
> --
> Martin Hicks   || [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Use PGP/GnuPG  || DSS PGP Key: 0x4C7F2BEE
> Beer: So much more than just a breakfast drink.
>
>   
>Part 1.2Type: application/pgp-signature

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Ide Hot-swaping?

2001-03-12 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Pozsar Balazs wrote:

> Is it possible to hot-swap ide drives and re-detect them?
> Does 'normal' Pc-hardware allow it?

read a recent man page for hdparm and you will see kernel
allows remove/add ide interface.  scripts with correct
parameter usage are in contrib directory of hdparm source.
IDE maintainer has code to electrically turn off (tristate)
ide channels on most PC ide chips, but is waiting to
demonstrate at an industry conference before releasing
to public.

>
>
> thanks,
> Balazs Pozsar.
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Ide Hot-swaping?

2001-03-12 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Pozsar Balazs wrote:

 Is it possible to hot-swap ide drives and re-detect them?
 Does 'normal' Pc-hardware allow it?

read a recent man page for hdparm and you will see kernel
allows remove/add ide interface.  scripts with correct
parameter usage are in contrib directory of hdparm source.
IDE maintainer has code to electrically turn off (tristate)
ide channels on most PC ide chips, but is waiting to
demonstrate at an industry conference before releasing
to public.



 thanks,
 Balazs Pozsar.

 -
 To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
 the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
 Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: 2.4 and PPPoE problem

2001-03-12 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Martin Hicks wrote:

 Hello,

 I'm using PPPoE with an i586 machine running 2.4.2.

are you using the kernel pppoe or the user-space one (rp-pppoe, etc)?
did it work on other kernels?



 The machine connects fine and allows network traffic to pass
 through the link.

 However, certain websites seem to choke.
 (notable ones are www.chapters.ca and www.hp.com)

 Using Lynx or Netscape I get the same results, a few bytes of
 traffic are received and then nothing (eventually the connection
 times out).

 The same does not happen in windows.  (ugh)

 I have not encountered any machine that I have telnet/ftp/ssh
 access to that breaks in this way so I can only confirm that http traffic
 is not working.

 This gateway machine does masquerading, and internal machines and the external
 machine react the same way.

are you positive the external (2.4.2 machine, right?) acts this way?

you can send me a tcpdump trace of a session or two that chokes.



 TIA
 mh

 Here is some useful info:

 mort@galileo:~$ uname -a
 Linux galileo 2.4.2 #4 Thu Feb 22 14:13:23 EST 2001 i586 unknown

 mort@galileo:~$ /sbin/ifconfig ppp0
 ppp0  Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
   inet addr:209.217.122.37  P-t-P:209.217.122.1  Mask:255.255.255.255
   UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1480  Metric:1
   RX packets:1272056 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
   TX packets:1476697 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
   collisions:0 txqueuelen:3
   RX bytes:430171737 (410.2 Mb)  TX bytes:1260803415 (1202.3 Mb)

 mort@galileo:~$ /sbin/route
 Kernel IP routing table
 Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric RefUse Iface
 magma   *   255.255.255.255 UH0  00 ppp0
 192.168.69.0*   255.255.255.0   U 0  00 eth0
 default magma   0.0.0.0 UG0  00 ppp0

 --
 Martin Hicks   || [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Use PGP/GnuPG  || DSS PGP Key: 0x4C7F2BEE
 Beer: So much more than just a breakfast drink.

   
Part 1.2Type: application/pgp-signature

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: conducting TCP sessions with non-local IPs

2001-03-06 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Mike Fedyk wrote:

> > [snip]
> >
> > /sbin/ip addr add 10.2.0.0/24 dev eth0
> >
> > Tada
> How would you deal with the other computer responding to the host "port not
> reachable"?

What the hell kind of monster are you making?  There's got to be another way.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: VFS: Cannot open root device

2001-03-06 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Peter Samuelson wrote:

> [Jeremy Jackson]
> > try command 'man mkinitrd' under redhat for hints about initial
> > ramdisk.
>
> I have been puzzled about this for quite some time.  Why exactly does
> everyone always recommend using 'mkinitrd' on Red Hat systems?  It
> seems to me that if you are compiling a kernel for a specific server
> anyway, it is a much more reliable proposition to just compile in
> whatever drivers you need to boot.
>
> initrd's are inherently clumsy and fragile, to my way of thinking.
> I've always thought they should only be used to support diverse or
> unknown hardware, or odd cases like crypto loopback root.  Are there
> other advantages to 'mkinitrd' in the case of a custom kernel for a
> single machine?
>

no the reason redhat uses it is to allow a generic kernel for everyone.
having *ALL* drivers in kernel would make it huge, and some drivers
conflict with each other (not many) so they couldn't all be in there.

If you have made a custom kernel (that is configured properly) you don't
need to bother.  The question is if you configured it properly :)

I would suggest taking a config from redhat (it puts them in
/usr/src/linux/configs)
and just tweaking that. (sorry if i already said that once)

other pitfalls include not having the right root= entry (or missing one) in
lilo.conf.

>
> Peter
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: 2.2.19pre - Kernel Panic: no init found

2001-03-06 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Stephane GARIN wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I tried with init=/bin/sh but no success. I download a 2.2.18 Kernel and I
> use patch 2.2.19pre16 but no success too... I don't know why there is this
> error with this 2.2.19 kernel but not with my 2.2.18 kernel. I'm ready to
> send all technical information about my computer (PIII 650 with 256Mb and a
> ABIT BX133-RAID mothercard).

looks like you have a lot of partitions.  maybe the kernel isn't using the
right one
for root filesystem? if using LILO to boot, make sure root= line for your new
kernel is the same as old one.  if using redhat on a large disk, it will set up

the first partition as /boot filesystem, so kernel will mount it ok, but won't
find any programs like init or sh on it.

Let me know how this works out.

>
>
> With Regards,
> Stephane Garin
>
> -Message d'origine-
> De : James Stevenson
> Envoyé : samedi 3 mars 2001 18:58
> À : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Objet : Re: 2.2.19pre - Kernel Panic: no init found
>
> Hi
>
> it would mean pass something like
> init=/bin/sh
> not the runlevel you want
>
> In local.linux-kernel-list, you wrote:
> >Hi,
> >
> >I have a kernel panic with the patch 2.2.19pre16 that I test. I use a
> 2.2.18
> >Kernel very well. I used the last patch on this kernel and make my kernel
> >with sames parameters without error message. At the boot, I can see this :
> >
> >..
> >eth0: RealTek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet at 0xa800, IRQ 10, 00:50:fc:0b:60:70
> >eth1: RealTek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet at 0xac00, IRQ 11, 00:50:fc:1f:c1:98
> >Partition check:
> > hda: hda1 hda2 < hda5 hda6 hda7 hda8 hda9 hda10 >
> >Trying to vfree() noexistent vm area (c00f)
> >VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
> >Freeing unused kernel memory: 68k freed
> >Kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.
> >
> >
> >
> >I tried to start with init=3 but no change. I send this information on this
> >mailing list because I think that could be a bug. Sorry if it is a wrong
> >action of me...
> >

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Linux installation problem

2001-03-06 Thread Jeremy Jackson

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Hi all,
>I am trying to install Linux (redhat-7) on a ps/2 server-9595
> machine (mca ). I am booting from a floppy disk and using a custom build
> 2.4.1 kernel image since there are problems  booting  the machine using the
> installation image on  redhat CD and also it is not CD bootable. The
> problem is that after booting it asks for redhat CDROM and when I insert
> the redhat CDROM it gives a message "I could not find a redhat linux CDROM
> in any of your CDROM drives ". The CD drive is a SCSI device and I have
> enabled SCSI cdrom in kernel compilation . Can any one help me .
>
> Thanks & Regards
> Shiju

Hi,

I have a type 8560 PS/2... not the same as yours but I did install slackware
on
it once.

I would suggest installing from a standard PC.  Boot disks are very
inflexible,
since you don't have any utilities to poke around and figure out what's going
on.

Once you have a complete root filesystem, once you've got a kernel to
recognise your scsi adapter, (and disk), you're off to the races, and can
use all kinds of tools to look into the CDROM problem...BUT

it's probably not going to recognise the disk either...

check different virtual consoles with alt-f1, f2, etc: under
a normal redhat boot disk, the different vc's will have diagnostic
messages, ie kernel messages, list of modules being loaded, etc.

maybe the best way is to be sure to compile kernel with support
for scsi subsystem *in kernel* - not module, along with
scsi-disk, scsi-cdrom, and your scsi host adapter.  the last
one may be the tricky one.  you will have to figure out if it is supported.
(the one in my PS/2 is at least for 2.0 kernel)

if you can make the kernel on the boot disk use a smaller font,
you will be able to see more of the messages at once.

also, shift-PgUp should let you scroll back some of the messages.
look for the kernel messages from your scsi host adapter driver...
if you don't see any there's a problem!

take a look inside your box and see what kind of scsi adapter it has.
or use your reference disk to see what it is.  post that here
so someone (maybe me) can check for kernel support.

Cheers,

Jeremy

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Linux installation problem

2001-03-06 Thread Jeremy Jackson

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Hi all,
I am trying to install Linux (redhat-7) on a ps/2 server-9595
 machine (mca ). I am booting from a floppy disk and using a custom build
 2.4.1 kernel image since there are problems  booting  the machine using the
 installation image on  redhat CD and also it is not CD bootable. The
 problem is that after booting it asks for redhat CDROM and when I insert
 the redhat CDROM it gives a message "I could not find a redhat linux CDROM
 in any of your CDROM drives ". The CD drive is a SCSI device and I have
 enabled SCSI cdrom in kernel compilation . Can any one help me .

 Thanks  Regards
 Shiju

Hi,

I have a type 8560 PS/2... not the same as yours but I did install slackware
on
it once.

I would suggest installing from a standard PC.  Boot disks are very
inflexible,
since you don't have any utilities to poke around and figure out what's going
on.

Once you have a complete root filesystem, once you've got a kernel to
recognise your scsi adapter, (and disk), you're off to the races, and can
use all kinds of tools to look into the CDROM problem...BUT

it's probably not going to recognise the disk either...

check different virtual consoles with alt-f1, f2, etc: under
a normal redhat boot disk, the different vc's will have diagnostic
messages, ie kernel messages, list of modules being loaded, etc.

maybe the best way is to be sure to compile kernel with support
for scsi subsystem *in kernel* - not module, along with
scsi-disk, scsi-cdrom, and your scsi host adapter.  the last
one may be the tricky one.  you will have to figure out if it is supported.
(the one in my PS/2 is at least for 2.0 kernel)

if you can make the kernel on the boot disk use a smaller font,
you will be able to see more of the messages at once.

also, shift-PgUp should let you scroll back some of the messages.
look for the kernel messages from your scsi host adapter driver...
if you don't see any there's a problem!

take a look inside your box and see what kind of scsi adapter it has.
or use your reference disk to see what it is.  post that here
so someone (maybe me) can check for kernel support.

Cheers,

Jeremy

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: 2.2.19pre - Kernel Panic: no init found

2001-03-06 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Stephane GARIN wrote:

 Hi,

 I tried with init=/bin/sh but no success. I download a 2.2.18 Kernel and I
 use patch 2.2.19pre16 but no success too... I don't know why there is this
 error with this 2.2.19 kernel but not with my 2.2.18 kernel. I'm ready to
 send all technical information about my computer (PIII 650 with 256Mb and a
 ABIT BX133-RAID mothercard).

looks like you have a lot of partitions.  maybe the kernel isn't using the
right one
for root filesystem? if using LILO to boot, make sure root= line for your new
kernel is the same as old one.  if using redhat on a large disk, it will set up

the first partition as /boot filesystem, so kernel will mount it ok, but won't
find any programs like init or sh on it.

Let me know how this works out.



 With Regards,
 Stephane Garin

 -Message d'origine-
 De : James Stevenson
 Envoy : samedi 3 mars 2001 18:58
  : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Objet : Re: 2.2.19pre - Kernel Panic: no init found

 Hi

 it would mean pass something like
 init=/bin/sh
 not the runlevel you want

 In local.linux-kernel-list, you wrote:
 Hi,
 
 I have a kernel panic with the patch 2.2.19pre16 that I test. I use a
 2.2.18
 Kernel very well. I used the last patch on this kernel and make my kernel
 with sames parameters without error message. At the boot, I can see this :
 
 ..
 eth0: RealTek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet at 0xa800, IRQ 10, 00:50:fc:0b:60:70
 eth1: RealTek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet at 0xac00, IRQ 11, 00:50:fc:1f:c1:98
 Partition check:
  hda: hda1 hda2  hda5 hda6 hda7 hda8 hda9 hda10 
 Trying to vfree() noexistent vm area (c00f)
 VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
 Freeing unused kernel memory: 68k freed
 Kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.
 
 
 
 I tried to start with init=3 but no change. I send this information on this
 mailing list because I think that could be a bug. Sorry if it is a wrong
 action of me...
 

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: VFS: Cannot open root device

2001-03-06 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Peter Samuelson wrote:

 [Jeremy Jackson]
  try command 'man mkinitrd' under redhat for hints about initial
  ramdisk.

 I have been puzzled about this for quite some time.  Why exactly does
 everyone always recommend using 'mkinitrd' on Red Hat systems?  It
 seems to me that if you are compiling a kernel for a specific server
 anyway, it is a much more reliable proposition to just compile in
 whatever drivers you need to boot.

 initrd's are inherently clumsy and fragile, to my way of thinking.
 I've always thought they should only be used to support diverse or
 unknown hardware, or odd cases like crypto loopback root.  Are there
 other advantages to 'mkinitrd' in the case of a custom kernel for a
 single machine?


no the reason redhat uses it is to allow a generic kernel for everyone.
having *ALL* drivers in kernel would make it huge, and some drivers
conflict with each other (not many) so they couldn't all be in there.

If you have made a custom kernel (that is configured properly) you don't
need to bother.  The question is if you configured it properly :)

I would suggest taking a config from redhat (it puts them in
/usr/src/linux/configs)
and just tweaking that. (sorry if i already said that once)

other pitfalls include not having the right root= entry (or missing one) in
lilo.conf.


 Peter
 -
 To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
 the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
 Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: conducting TCP sessions with non-local IPs

2001-03-06 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Mike Fedyk wrote:

  [snip]
 
  /sbin/ip addr add 10.2.0.0/24 dev eth0
 
  Tada
 How would you deal with the other computer responding to the host "port not
 reachable"?

What the hell kind of monster are you making?  There's got to be another way.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: How-To for PPPoE in v2.4.x?

2001-03-05 Thread Jeremy Jackson

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Is there a How-To for getting the Linux v2.4.x PPPoE support to work?
> I've searched for info but have mostly found sketchy references on getting
> PPPoE to work with the v2.2 kernel.
>

I have been using PPPoE in the 2.4.0 kernel for about 2 months now.  It's
very nice.  I used

http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~mostrows/

just grab the tarball and compile.  I bet it will work under 2.4.2 also.

>
> My system is running RedHat v6.2 and the v2.4.2 Linux kernel.  I've built
> PPP and PPPoE support into the kernel and I've installed the v2.4.0 PPP
> software.  I've got the /dev/ppp created by the RedHat installation and I
> see "pppoe" in the /proc/drivers list of drivers.
>
> I've got a (PCMCIA-based) NIC that I know works as a plain non-PPPoE
> device under v2.4.x.
>
> So what do I do now?  Do I have to patch pppd to utilize the kernel's
> new PPPoE support?  Do I have to create a /dev/pppoe devnode?
>
> While I have a lot of experience with Ethernet networking on Linux, I am a
> total PPP (let alone PPPoE) newbie.  Please be gentle.  :-)

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: [OFFTOPIC] Hardlink utility - reclaim drive space

2001-03-05 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Padraig Brady wrote:

> Hmm.. useful until you actually want to modify a linked file,
> but then your modifying the file in all "merged" trees.
> Wouldn't it be cool to have an extended attribute
> for files called "Copy on Write", so then you could
> hardlink all duplicate files together, but when a file is
> modified a copy is transparently created.
> Actually should it be called "Copy On Modify"? since if
> you copied a file there would be no need to make an actual
> copy until the file was modified.
>
> The only problem I see with this is that you wouldn't have
> enough space to store a copy of a file, what would you do
> in this case, just return an error on write?
>
> Is there any way this could be extended across filesystems?
> I suppose you could add it on top of existing DFS'?
>
> I could see many uses for this, like backup systems, but perhaps
> a block level system is more appropriate in this case?
> (like the just announced SnapFS).
>
> Is there any filesystem that supports this @ present?
>
> Padraig.
>
> William Stearns wrote:
>
> > Good day, all,
> >   Sorry for the offtopic post; I sincerely believe this will be
> > useful to developers with multiple copies of, say, the linux kernel tree
> > on their drives.  I'll be brief.  Please followup to private mail -
> > thanks.
> >   Freedups scans the directories you give it for identical files and
> > hardlinks them together to save drive space.  Please see
> > ftp://ftp.stearns.org/pub/freedups .  V0.2.1 is up there; it has received
> > some testing, but may yet contain bugs.
> >   I was able to recover ~676M by running it against 8 different
> > 2.4.x kernel trees with different patches that originally contained ~948M
> > of files.  YMMV.
> >   I do understand there are better ways to handle this problem (cp
> > -av --link, cvs? Bitkeeper, deleting unneeded trees, tarring up trees,
> > etc.).  See the readme for a little discussion on this.  This is just one
> > approach that may be useful in some situations.
> >   Cheers,
> >   - Bill

snapFS might handle this - versioning, copy-on-write disk file
clones... even finer grained: only modified blocks of a file are
duplicated, not the entire file, and it does this in real-time.

in the case of kernel, why not get the whole repository?
CVS stores versions as diffs internally, saving space.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: [OFFTOPIC] Hardlink utility - reclaim drive space

2001-03-05 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Padraig Brady wrote:

 Hmm.. useful until you actually want to modify a linked file,
 but then your modifying the file in all "merged" trees.
 Wouldn't it be cool to have an extended attribute
 for files called "Copy on Write", so then you could
 hardlink all duplicate files together, but when a file is
 modified a copy is transparently created.
 Actually should it be called "Copy On Modify"? since if
 you copied a file there would be no need to make an actual
 copy until the file was modified.

 The only problem I see with this is that you wouldn't have
 enough space to store a copy of a file, what would you do
 in this case, just return an error on write?

 Is there any way this could be extended across filesystems?
 I suppose you could add it on top of existing DFS'?

 I could see many uses for this, like backup systems, but perhaps
 a block level system is more appropriate in this case?
 (like the just announced SnapFS).

 Is there any filesystem that supports this @ present?

 Padraig.

 William Stearns wrote:

  Good day, all,
Sorry for the offtopic post; I sincerely believe this will be
  useful to developers with multiple copies of, say, the linux kernel tree
  on their drives.  I'll be brief.  Please followup to private mail -
  thanks.
Freedups scans the directories you give it for identical files and
  hardlinks them together to save drive space.  Please see
  ftp://ftp.stearns.org/pub/freedups .  V0.2.1 is up there; it has received
  some testing, but may yet contain bugs.
I was able to recover ~676M by running it against 8 different
  2.4.x kernel trees with different patches that originally contained ~948M
  of files.  YMMV.
I do understand there are better ways to handle this problem (cp
  -av --link, cvs? Bitkeeper, deleting unneeded trees, tarring up trees,
  etc.).  See the readme for a little discussion on this.  This is just one
  approach that may be useful in some situations.
Cheers,
- Bill

snapFS might handle this - versioning, copy-on-write disk file
clones... even finer grained: only modified blocks of a file are
duplicated, not the entire file, and it does this in real-time.

in the case of kernel, why not get the whole repository?
CVS stores versions as diffs internally, saving space.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: How-To for PPPoE in v2.4.x?

2001-03-05 Thread Jeremy Jackson

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Is there a How-To for getting the Linux v2.4.x PPPoE support to work?
 I've searched for info but have mostly found sketchy references on getting
 PPPoE to work with the v2.2 kernel.


I have been using PPPoE in the 2.4.0 kernel for about 2 months now.  It's
very nice.  I used

http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~mostrows/

just grab the tarball and compile.  I bet it will work under 2.4.2 also.


 My system is running RedHat v6.2 and the v2.4.2 Linux kernel.  I've built
 PPP and PPPoE support into the kernel and I've installed the v2.4.0 PPP
 software.  I've got the /dev/ppp created by the RedHat installation and I
 see "pppoe" in the /proc/drivers list of drivers.

 I've got a (PCMCIA-based) NIC that I know works as a plain non-PPPoE
 device under v2.4.x.

 So what do I do now?  Do I have to patch pppd to utilize the kernel's
 new PPPoE support?  Do I have to create a /dev/pppoe devnode?

 While I have a lot of experience with Ethernet networking on Linux, I am a
 total PPP (let alone PPPoE) newbie.  Please be gentle.  :-)

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Slight Time drift in linux by division fault

2001-03-04 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Erwin Six wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm a senior Student in electronic Engineering. A lot of my work takes
> place inside the network-part of the kernel, but now I'm confronted with
> time. I designed a hardware-board whitch trys to synchronize

I would study the xntpd daemon furthur before trying to reinvent the wheel.
PC clock oscillators are notoriously inaccurate, the ntp documentation
goes really in depth about the kernel and time, so try reading this first.

Good luck!

>
> network-monitors by GPS. Electronicly this board is tested, and it has an
> hardware resolution of about 1 usec (in phase, so in relative time). Now
> I'm writing the device-driver that synchronizes the Linux-time system. If
> I interrupt the kernel at the exact GPS-zero-time. And I watch the
> do_timeoftheday() the seconds increases, but there is also a extra
> increase of +-16 usec each second. So it seams that a linux second takes
> 16usec more than one GPS second. Can I explain this with math?
>
> the cristal inside the computer ticks with a frequency of 1193180 Hz this
> 16usec could be an fault of 16ppm whitch is rather big. But 2 diffrent
> systems have the allmost drift (+-2). Or it can be caused by the division
> inside the linux time-system (whitch is possible after you see this
> calculations)
>
> If HZ = 100 then the LATCH of the PIT = (1193180 + HZ/2) / HZ = 11932
> so in 1 sec we have 1193200 ticks of the PIT which causes 100
> timer-interrupts. 1193200 ticks instead of 1193180 means that there are 20
> ticks to mutch inside of each second. or 20 * 1/1193180 = 16.7619 usec. or
> 1 second to mutch every 16.5 hours (or 8.8 minutes a year). I've looked
> the PLL closely but I can't find a mechanisme that compensates for this
> problem, maybe I'm looking over it? Indeed 8.8 minutes is mutch, but I
> think if I hadn't use a GPS, I wouldn't notice it.
>
> Why do I suppose the second option? If you play a little bit with the HZ
> parameter, you can let your timeclock drift mutch faster just by taking a
> HZ that has a big 1193180 % HZ. eg. 5000 Hz gives a latch of 291 which
> causes 119500 instead of 1193180 or a drift of 1820 ticks = 1.525 ms!
>
> I have some solutions in mind to compensate this problem, but I have to
> be sure.
> Can somebody confirm this problem?

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: 2.4.2: What happened ? (No such file or directory)

2001-03-04 Thread Jeremy Jackson

" Frédéric L. W. Meunier" wrote:

> Correction. I can umount the partitions, but I get the
> following message:
>
> "can't link lock file /etc/mtab~: No such file or
> directory (use -n flag to override)"
>
> And /etc/mtab isn't updated.

Is your root filesystem mounted read-only at any point?
(check with 'mount' look for ro in line for / filesystem)
Check permissions on /etc, /etc/mtab, /etc/mtab~


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: 2.4.2: What happened ? (No such file or directory)

2001-03-04 Thread Jeremy Jackson

" Frdric L. W. Meunier" wrote:

 Correction. I can umount the partitions, but I get the
 following message:

 "can't link lock file /etc/mtab~: No such file or
 directory (use -n flag to override)"

 And /etc/mtab isn't updated.

Is your root filesystem mounted read-only at any point?
(check with 'mount' look for ro in line for / filesystem)
Check permissions on /etc, /etc/mtab, /etc/mtab~


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Slight Time drift in linux by division fault

2001-03-04 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Erwin Six wrote:

 Hello,

 I'm a senior Student in electronic Engineering. A lot of my work takes
 place inside the network-part of the kernel, but now I'm confronted with
 time. I designed a hardware-board whitch trys to synchronize

I would study the xntpd daemon furthur before trying to reinvent the wheel.
PC clock oscillators are notoriously inaccurate, the ntp documentation
goes really in depth about the kernel and time, so try reading this first.

Good luck!


 network-monitors by GPS. Electronicly this board is tested, and it has an
 hardware resolution of about 1 usec (in phase, so in relative time). Now
 I'm writing the device-driver that synchronizes the Linux-time system. If
 I interrupt the kernel at the exact GPS-zero-time. And I watch the
 do_timeoftheday() the seconds increases, but there is also a extra
 increase of +-16 usec each second. So it seams that a linux second takes
 16usec more than one GPS second. Can I explain this with math?

 the cristal inside the computer ticks with a frequency of 1193180 Hz this
 16usec could be an fault of 16ppm whitch is rather big. But 2 diffrent
 systems have the allmost drift (+-2). Or it can be caused by the division
 inside the linux time-system (whitch is possible after you see this
 calculations)

 If HZ = 100 then the LATCH of the PIT = (1193180 + HZ/2) / HZ = 11932
 so in 1 sec we have 1193200 ticks of the PIT which causes 100
 timer-interrupts. 1193200 ticks instead of 1193180 means that there are 20
 ticks to mutch inside of each second. or 20 * 1/1193180 = 16.7619 usec. or
 1 second to mutch every 16.5 hours (or 8.8 minutes a year). I've looked
 the PLL closely but I can't find a mechanisme that compensates for this
 problem, maybe I'm looking over it? Indeed 8.8 minutes is mutch, but I
 think if I hadn't use a GPS, I wouldn't notice it.

 Why do I suppose the second option? If you play a little bit with the HZ
 parameter, you can let your timeclock drift mutch faster just by taking a
 HZ that has a big 1193180 % HZ. eg. 5000 Hz gives a latch of 291 which
 causes 119500 instead of 1193180 or a drift of 1820 ticks = 1.525 ms!

 I have some solutions in mind to compensate this problem, but I have to
 be sure.
 Can somebody confirm this problem?

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Forwarding broadcast traffic

2001-03-03 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Jon Masters wrote:

> Jeremy Jackson wrote:
>
> > try bridging instead if ip forwarding.  use netfilter too if you want
>
> I mentioned bridging before - I don't want some kind of transparent
> bridge, really so what I would need is for the router to be contactable
> in the same way as before and for regular traffic to pass normally but
> with a special arrangement for certain broadcast traffic.
>
> Is it possible to selectively bridge broadcast traffic in the way I have
> described?
>
> Normally of course I'd have the router either being a standard router or
> a bridge but in this case some kind of hybrid arrangement would be
> preferable.
>
> Thanks for your help,
> --jcm

Well it you give the server an ip alias address that's on the subnet
of the clients, bridge the two segments together,
but use netfilter to drop all packets that aren't your
broadcasts, it might do the trick.  I'm not to familiar with
bridging, but i'm confident that 2.4's netfilter can do it...
you can filter/route based on pretty much *any* data
in the packet, by manually specifying an arbitrary offset
in the headers and bit pattern if necessary IIRC.

if you know which port IP port it's easy.

Can you be more specific... is this an IP broadcast?
or ethernet only like IPX or NetBEUI?
perhaps subnetting with "invalid" netmasks could
cause broadcast to reach entire supernet even
though subnets are on diff segments (in case of IP)

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Forwarding broadcast traffic

2001-03-03 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Jon Masters wrote:

> Hello,
> I have a brain-dead application here which relies on broadcast
> traffic for client/server discovery and I have a question with regard
> to forwarding broadcast traffic.

try bridging instead if ip forwarding.  use netfilter too if you want

>
>
> A small part of my local LAN looks like this:
>
>  REST OF LAN
>   |
>   | (router eth1)
>   |
>  masquerading
> router (kernel 2.2.14)
>   |
>   | (router eth0)
>   |
>desktop (private IP)
> boxen  (kernel 2.4.2)
>
> * upgrading the router is not a problem[0].
>
> I wish to have the router forward certain broadcast traffic coming
> from either side out to the other (as well as itself).
>
> e.g. on desktop a broadcast udp packet (with a specified port) needs to
> go not only to itself and the router but also the "REST OF LAN" part
> too - and vice versa. Removing the router is not an option.
>
> I know this isn't a *nice* idea and ordinarily I wouldn't be jumping up
> and down suggesting one throws broadcast traffic around however I need
> to do this for various reasons and the solution appears to be
> non-obvious at least to me[1].
>
> I have considered the idea of creating a transparent bridge however I
> would really rather not do that here for various reasons.
>
> I have posted this message to groups elsewhere however I have not yet
> had any useful responses beyond basic instruction of IP forwarding,
> etc. which is not what I need here :P
>
> Any ideas? I think this one has come up before but I could not find a
> helpful answer in my archives.
>
> Appreciate your time,
> --jcm
>
> P.S. My lkml feed at home is great but here it is not so could you
>  please CC me on replies thanks.
>
> [0] Yeah, yeah, I know 2.2.14 is old but it's an old router and when I
> move that box over to Debian I'll upgrade the kernel at the same
> time :P
> [1] either due to general stupidity or tiredness, or both.
> -

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Forwarding broadcast traffic

2001-03-03 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Jon Masters wrote:

 Hello,
 I have a brain-dead application here which relies on broadcast
 traffic for client/server discovery and I have a question with regard
 to forwarding broadcast traffic.

try bridging instead if ip forwarding.  use netfilter too if you want



 A small part of my local LAN looks like this:

  REST OF LAN
   |
   | (router eth1)
   |
  masquerading
 router (kernel 2.2.14)
   |
   | (router eth0)
   |
desktop (private IP)
 boxen  (kernel 2.4.2)

 * upgrading the router is not a problem[0].

 I wish to have the router forward certain broadcast traffic coming
 from either side out to the other (as well as itself).

 e.g. on desktop a broadcast udp packet (with a specified port) needs to
 go not only to itself and the router but also the "REST OF LAN" part
 too - and vice versa. Removing the router is not an option.

 I know this isn't a *nice* idea and ordinarily I wouldn't be jumping up
 and down suggesting one throws broadcast traffic around however I need
 to do this for various reasons and the solution appears to be
 non-obvious at least to me[1].

 I have considered the idea of creating a transparent bridge however I
 would really rather not do that here for various reasons.

 I have posted this message to groups elsewhere however I have not yet
 had any useful responses beyond basic instruction of IP forwarding,
 etc. which is not what I need here :P

 Any ideas? I think this one has come up before but I could not find a
 helpful answer in my archives.

 Appreciate your time,
 --jcm

 P.S. My lkml feed at home is great but here it is not so could you
  please CC me on replies thanks.

 [0] Yeah, yeah, I know 2.2.14 is old but it's an old router and when I
 move that box over to Debian I'll upgrade the kernel at the same
 time :P
 [1] either due to general stupidity or tiredness, or both.
 -

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Forwarding broadcast traffic

2001-03-03 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Jon Masters wrote:

 Jeremy Jackson wrote:

  try bridging instead if ip forwarding.  use netfilter too if you want

 I mentioned bridging before - I don't want some kind of transparent
 bridge, really so what I would need is for the router to be contactable
 in the same way as before and for regular traffic to pass normally but
 with a special arrangement for certain broadcast traffic.

 Is it possible to selectively bridge broadcast traffic in the way I have
 described?

 Normally of course I'd have the router either being a standard router or
 a bridge but in this case some kind of hybrid arrangement would be
 preferable.

 Thanks for your help,
 --jcm

Well it you give the server an ip alias address that's on the subnet
of the clients, bridge the two segments together,
but use netfilter to drop all packets that aren't your
broadcasts, it might do the trick.  I'm not to familiar with
bridging, but i'm confident that 2.4's netfilter can do it...
you can filter/route based on pretty much *any* data
in the packet, by manually specifying an arbitrary offset
in the headers and bit pattern if necessary IIRC.

if you know which port IP port it's easy.

Can you be more specific... is this an IP broadcast?
or ethernet only like IPX or NetBEUI?
perhaps subnetting with "invalid" netmasks could
cause broadcast to reach entire supernet even
though subnets are on diff segments (in case of IP)

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: [Fwd: [LARTC] 1 adsl + 1 sdsl + masq + simultaneous incomming routes]

2001-03-02 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Mike Fedyk wrote:

> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, 2 Mar 2001, Mike Fedyk wrote:
> >
> > > I have two dsl links, each with one ip, and a single gateway is assigned the ip
> > > for each.
> > >
> > >  ____
> > > | ADSL |  | SDSL |
> > > |__|  |__|
> > >\  /
> > > \/
> > >  ___||
> > > | gateway |
> > > |_|
> > > ||
> > > ||
> > > ||
> > >_||__
> > >   | web |
> > >   |_|
> > >
> > > OK.
> > >
> > > The problem: I am able to have the web server use one or the other dsl, but not
> > > both at the same time.
> > >
> > > If I have web set to sdsl, replies to queries that came from adsl go out on the
> > > sdsl link. Also since masq is involved, it also responds with the sdsl ip.
> > >
> > > How can I have replies go back on the correct internet link?  OH, btw, the web
> > > server is NT, so I won't be able to modify any packets there...
> >
> > What I've done is to put two IPs on the server (your web server, in this
> > case). You would then have the gateway send one IP out via ADSL, and the
> > out via SDSL.
> >
> > There is no way I know of to make that work.
> >
> > --
> > ---
> > Phil Brutsche  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> There has to be a better way.  I'm forwarding this to LKML.  Maybe they have a
> better idea...
>
> I know the kernel keeps a route cache, is there something like a reverse MASQ
> feature somewhere.  Storing which incoming route + port number and keeping a
> dynamic list...

try www.liuxdoc.org search for iproute2 and netfilter.

with 2.4. kernel, you can mark packets *before* they go through routing table,
and the routing tablecan use mark value to choose which route to use,
so if you use set up the NT box with two IP's, your firewall can
mark packets based on destination (on webserver) IP.
think of it like having two default routes...

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: [Re: paging behavior in Linux]

2001-03-02 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Manfred Spraul wrote:

> Neelam Saboo wrote:
> >
> > hi,
> >
> > After I installed a newer version of Kernel (2.4.2) and enable DMA option in

Ah hah!  There's a huge difference in performance (in my experience) with
DMA.  also, using hdparm utility, *most* drives work fine with dma,
irq unmasking, multisector transfers, and 32bit access.
hdparm -i /dev/hda or such will tell you maximum multisector supported.
the only reason these aren't enabled AFAIK is that SOME drives don't,
and when there's a problem it could cause data loss.

The worker thread may just have been overtaking the prefetcher
because dma was off and disk was slow.

>
> > hardware configuration, the behavior changes.
> > I can see performance improvements when another thread is used. Also, i can
> > see timing overlaps between two threads. i.e. when one thread is blocked on a
> > page fault, other thread keeps working.
> > Now, how can this behavior be explained , given the earlier argument.
> > Is it that, a newer version of kernel has fixed the problem of the semaphore
> > ?
> >
> No, that change won't happen until 2.5
>
> I can only guess:
> the other thread keeps working until it causes a page fault - with both
> 2.4.1 and 2.4.2.
>
> I haven't followed the threads about the mm changes closely, but I
> assume that the swapout behaviour changed, and that your worker thread
> now runs without causing page faults.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: VFS: Cannot open root device

2001-03-02 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Jeremy wrote:

This is going to get confusing!

> Hello all,
>  HELP, I have a new server that I am trying to put
> Redhat 7.0 on. It is a Compaq Proliant ML530 Dual PIII
> 1Ghz with a Gig of RAM. It has a Compaq smart array
> 5300 in it also. It boots just fine with the default
> Redhat 7 kernel 2.2.16smp but when I compiled my own
> 2.4.2 kernel I get the following message.
>
> request_module[scsi_host_adapter]: Root FS not mounted
> request_module[scsi_host_adapter]: Root FS not mounted

2 possibilities: you misconfigured kernel or didn't
make  an initial ramdisk to load scsi modules.

to make a good configuration, you may wish to use the config
files that redhat used to build the kernel you say works,
and then just tweak a few things like processor type.
they're installed (i think) in /usr/src/linux/configs
if you install kernel-source package.

try command 'man mkinitrd' under redhat
for hints about initial ramdisk.

>
>
> Then some standard lines Then:
>
> NET 4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET 4.0
> request_module[block-major-104]: Root FS not mounted
> VFS: Cannot open root device "6802" or 68:02
> Please append a correct "root=" boot option
> Kernel Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root FS on 68:02
>
>  When I boot 2.2.16 the only modules that are loaded
> are cciss, NCR53C8XX, eepro100 and tlan. I have triple
> checked and I have built cciss and NCR53C8XX into the
> kernel, I even tried them as modules. It almost looks
> like it just isn't loading the NCR53C8XX and then it
> cant mount the File system.
>  If you need any more info please let me know.
>
> Please CC anything to me directly since I am not on
> the mailing list.
>
> Thanks,
>Jeremy

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: IRQ advice (2.4.2-ac7)

2001-03-02 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Favre Gregoire wrote:

> Hello,
>
> as I boot some times under windows, i have to change my IRQ for my PCI
> devices to (all) 9... and all the times I tried to boot that way under linux,
> it doesn't boot...
>
> So I haven't tested it that way for ages... and now with 2.4.2-ac7 i booted
> without any problem that way:
> cat /proc/interrupts 03.03 1:52
>CPU0
>   0:3051534  XT-PIC  timer
>   1:  37390  XT-PIC  keyboard
>   2:  0  XT-PIC  cascade
>   8:  1  XT-PIC  rtc
>   9:6193814  XT-PIC  HiSax, aic7xxx, EMU10K1, usb-uhci, saa7146(1), bttv
>  12: 314048  XT-PIC  PS/2 Mouse
>  14:  11820  XT-PIC  ide0
>  15:  42041  XT-PIC  ide1
> NMI:  27599
> LOC:3051630
> ERR:  0
> MIS:  0
>
> Is it safe to do it that way?

I personally don't like sharing interrupts unles absolutely necessary.
Can you tell me why you need to do this?  I would recommend
disabling any devices you aren't using in the BIOS,
to free up interrupts.  (IE 2nd serial port, USB, 1st serial if you
only use PS/2 mouse)

If you don't use the floppy you might be able to disable it in BIOS.
I have one board that will use irq 6 for something more useful in this
case.

Also, changing PCI slot assignment of some cards (if you have spare
slots) can prevent sharing as well.

The BIOS on many boards will show PCI interrupt assignment
on the bootup screen.  Otherwise check in windows
device manager - double click on Computer node.

according to the above usage, you could use 4 (com1) (if not mouse or modem)
3 com2
5 unused
9,10,11

for devices.

Good luck!

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: How to set hdparms for ide-scsi devices on devfs?

2001-03-02 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Wakko Warner wrote:

> > PS: Is there still a possibility for setting the IDE-sleep timeout
> >   for a ide-scsi harddisk?  (I know, this doesnt make sense)

Yeah, why would you ?   ide-scsi is mainly to support cd-rw
drives, AFAIK

>
>
> I didn't know you could use ide-scsi emulation for hard drives.
>
> --
>  Lab tests show that use of micro$oft causes cancer in lab animals
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: PPP problems

2001-03-02 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Rob wrote:

> Hi, I'd like to thank everyone that helped me with the compiler problem.
> I've updated everthing in Documentation/Changes I have a brand spankers
> new gcc, ppp, etc.  The problem I'm running into now is when I try to
> connect to the internet, it says that I don't have a kernel that supports
> PPP.  I've tried compiling it in as modules and as part of the kernel but
> when I try to connect to the isp I keep getting the message that I don't
> have a kernel that supports PPP. I've even contacted my System
> Administrator, Hi Chris ;^).  Any ideas on what I could try next?  A cc
> would be great, as I'm not on the linux-kernel list.

Do you have the right kernel configuratoin?  It sounds like
you need to load the modules (or set modules.conf to
auto-load them with "alias" lines)

On linux 2.4 you need ppp_generic, ppp_async, slhc loaded
with modprobe or insmod.

on 2.4 config options under "network device support"

 PPP (point-to-point protocol) support
[ ]   PPP multilink support (EXPERIMENTAL)
   PPP support for async serial ports
   PPP support for sync tty ports
   PPP Deflate compression
   PPP BSD-Compress compression
   PPP over Ethernet (EXPERIMENTAL)

your using a modem?  cable or ADSL?

reply to me privately, as linux-kernel probably isn't
the place to discuss this since it sounds like an install
issue... if we find it's a kernel bug then it would be ok.

if you're using a 2.2 kernel i suggest you try the
one that came with your distribution.

oh yeah what is your distribution?

Cheers,

Jeremy

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: PPP problems

2001-03-02 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Rob wrote:

 Hi, I'd like to thank everyone that helped me with the compiler problem.
 I've updated everthing in Documentation/Changes I have a brand spankers
 new gcc, ppp, etc.  The problem I'm running into now is when I try to
 connect to the internet, it says that I don't have a kernel that supports
 PPP.  I've tried compiling it in as modules and as part of the kernel but
 when I try to connect to the isp I keep getting the message that I don't
 have a kernel that supports PPP. I've even contacted my System
 Administrator, Hi Chris ;^).  Any ideas on what I could try next?  A cc
 would be great, as I'm not on the linux-kernel list.

Do you have the right kernel configuratoin?  It sounds like
you need to load the modules (or set modules.conf to
auto-load them with "alias" lines)

On linux 2.4 you need ppp_generic, ppp_async, slhc loaded
with modprobe or insmod.

on 2.4 config options under "network device support"

M PPP (point-to-point protocol) support
[ ]   PPP multilink support (EXPERIMENTAL)
M   PPP support for async serial ports
M   PPP support for sync tty ports
M   PPP Deflate compression
M   PPP BSD-Compress compression
M   PPP over Ethernet (EXPERIMENTAL)

your using a modem?  cable or ADSL?

reply to me privately, as linux-kernel probably isn't
the place to discuss this since it sounds like an install
issue... if we find it's a kernel bug then it would be ok.

if you're using a 2.2 kernel i suggest you try the
one that came with your distribution.

oh yeah what is your distribution?

Cheers,

Jeremy

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: How to set hdparms for ide-scsi devices on devfs?

2001-03-02 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Wakko Warner wrote:

  PS: Is there still a possibility for setting the IDE-sleep timeout
for a ide-scsi harddisk?  (I know, this doesnt make sense)

Yeah, why would you ?   ide-scsi is mainly to support cd-rw
drives, AFAIK



 I didn't know you could use ide-scsi emulation for hard drives.

 --
  Lab tests show that use of micro$oft causes cancer in lab animals
 -
 To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
 the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
 Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: IRQ advice (2.4.2-ac7)

2001-03-02 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Favre Gregoire wrote:

 Hello,

 as I boot some times under windows, i have to change my IRQ for my PCI
 devices to (all) 9... and all the times I tried to boot that way under linux,
 it doesn't boot...

 So I haven't tested it that way for ages... and now with 2.4.2-ac7 i booted
 without any problem that way:
 cat /proc/interrupts 03.03 1:52
CPU0
   0:3051534  XT-PIC  timer
   1:  37390  XT-PIC  keyboard
   2:  0  XT-PIC  cascade
   8:  1  XT-PIC  rtc
   9:6193814  XT-PIC  HiSax, aic7xxx, EMU10K1, usb-uhci, saa7146(1), bttv
  12: 314048  XT-PIC  PS/2 Mouse
  14:  11820  XT-PIC  ide0
  15:  42041  XT-PIC  ide1
 NMI:  27599
 LOC:3051630
 ERR:  0
 MIS:  0

 Is it safe to do it that way?

I personally don't like sharing interrupts unles absolutely necessary.
Can you tell me why you need to do this?  I would recommend
disabling any devices you aren't using in the BIOS,
to free up interrupts.  (IE 2nd serial port, USB, 1st serial if you
only use PS/2 mouse)

If you don't use the floppy you might be able to disable it in BIOS.
I have one board that will use irq 6 for something more useful in this
case.

Also, changing PCI slot assignment of some cards (if you have spare
slots) can prevent sharing as well.

The BIOS on many boards will show PCI interrupt assignment
on the bootup screen.  Otherwise check in windows
device manager - double click on Computer node.

according to the above usage, you could use 4 (com1) (if not mouse or modem)
3 com2
5 unused
9,10,11

for devices.

Good luck!

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: VFS: Cannot open root device

2001-03-02 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Jeremy wrote:

This is going to get confusing!

 Hello all,
  HELP, I have a new server that I am trying to put
 Redhat 7.0 on. It is a Compaq Proliant ML530 Dual PIII
 1Ghz with a Gig of RAM. It has a Compaq smart array
 5300 in it also. It boots just fine with the default
 Redhat 7 kernel 2.2.16smp but when I compiled my own
 2.4.2 kernel I get the following message.

 request_module[scsi_host_adapter]: Root FS not mounted
 request_module[scsi_host_adapter]: Root FS not mounted

2 possibilities: you misconfigured kernel or didn't
make  an initial ramdisk to load scsi modules.

to make a good configuration, you may wish to use the config
files that redhat used to build the kernel you say works,
and then just tweak a few things like processor type.
they're installed (i think) in /usr/src/linux/configs
if you install kernel-source package.

try command 'man mkinitrd' under redhat
for hints about initial ramdisk.



 Then some standard lines Then:

 NET 4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET 4.0
 request_module[block-major-104]: Root FS not mounted
 VFS: Cannot open root device "6802" or 68:02
 Please append a correct "root=" boot option
 Kernel Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root FS on 68:02

  When I boot 2.2.16 the only modules that are loaded
 are cciss, NCR53C8XX, eepro100 and tlan. I have triple
 checked and I have built cciss and NCR53C8XX into the
 kernel, I even tried them as modules. It almost looks
 like it just isn't loading the NCR53C8XX and then it
 cant mount the File system.
  If you need any more info please let me know.

 Please CC anything to me directly since I am not on
 the mailing list.

 Thanks,
Jeremy

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: [Re: paging behavior in Linux]

2001-03-02 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Manfred Spraul wrote:

 Neelam Saboo wrote:
 
  hi,
 
  After I installed a newer version of Kernel (2.4.2) and enable DMA option in

Ah hah!  There's a huge difference in performance (in my experience) with
DMA.  also, using hdparm utility, *most* drives work fine with dma,
irq unmasking, multisector transfers, and 32bit access.
hdparm -i /dev/hda or such will tell you maximum multisector supported.
the only reason these aren't enabled AFAIK is that SOME drives don't,
and when there's a problem it could cause data loss.

The worker thread may just have been overtaking the prefetcher
because dma was off and disk was slow.


  hardware configuration, the behavior changes.
  I can see performance improvements when another thread is used. Also, i can
  see timing overlaps between two threads. i.e. when one thread is blocked on a
  page fault, other thread keeps working.
  Now, how can this behavior be explained , given the earlier argument.
  Is it that, a newer version of kernel has fixed the problem of the semaphore
  ?
 
 No, that change won't happen until 2.5

 I can only guess:
 the other thread keeps working until it causes a page fault - with both
 2.4.1 and 2.4.2.

 I haven't followed the threads about the mm changes closely, but I
 assume that the swapout behaviour changed, and that your worker thread
 now runs without causing page faults.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: [Fwd: [LARTC] 1 adsl + 1 sdsl + masq + simultaneous incomming routes]

2001-03-02 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Mike Fedyk wrote:

 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
  On Fri, 2 Mar 2001, Mike Fedyk wrote:
 
   I have two dsl links, each with one ip, and a single gateway is assigned the ip
   for each.
  
____
   | ADSL |  | SDSL |
   |__|  |__|
  \  /
   \/
___||
   | gateway |
   |_|
   ||
   ||
   ||
  _||__
 | web |
 |_|
  
   OK.
  
   The problem: I am able to have the web server use one or the other dsl, but not
   both at the same time.
  
   If I have web set to sdsl, replies to queries that came from adsl go out on the
   sdsl link. Also since masq is involved, it also responds with the sdsl ip.
  
   How can I have replies go back on the correct internet link?  OH, btw, the web
   server is NT, so I won't be able to modify any packets there...
 
  What I've done is to put two IPs on the server (your web server, in this
  case). You would then have the gateway send one IP out via ADSL, and the
  out via SDSL.
 
  There is no way I know of to make that work.
 
  --
  ---
  Phil Brutsche  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

 There has to be a better way.  I'm forwarding this to LKML.  Maybe they have a
 better idea...

 I know the kernel keeps a route cache, is there something like a reverse MASQ
 feature somewhere.  Storing which incoming route + port number and keeping a
 dynamic list...

try www.liuxdoc.org search for iproute2 and netfilter.

with 2.4. kernel, you can mark packets *before* they go through routing table,
and the routing tablecan use mark value to choose which route to use,
so if you use set up the NT box with two IP's, your firewall can
mark packets based on destination (on webserver) IP.
think of it like having two default routes...

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: [Newbie] Re: Problem creating filesystem

2001-03-01 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Rogerio Brito wrote:

> On Feb 26 2001, Jeremy Jackson wrote:
> > Carlos Fernandez Sanz wrote:
> > > The IDE controller is
> > >   Bus  0, device  17, function  0:
> > > Unknown mass storage controller: Promise Technology Unknown device (rev
> > > 2).
> > >   Vendor id=105a. Device id=d30.
> > >   Medium devsel.  IRQ 10.  Master Capable.  Latency=32.
> >
> > Unrelated to disk "problem", you might want to set your PCI latency timer in
> > BIOS to 64 or more.

This should be accessible in your BIOS setup.  I'm basing my comments on
one NIC driver complaining in my logs and overriding settings lower that 64;
however the general idea is to trade off latency for throughput.  If I go crazy,
like 192 or so, on *my* system, sound card starts to pop a bit, indicating that
it's fifo buffer is smaller that that and is emptying when other devices
are using the bus at the same time (it's like a timeslice)

>
>
> Ok, I understand that this is probably off-topic and way too
> basic, but what exactly would this do, in layman terms? Would
> the latency being set to 32 result in any potential data
> corruption?  BTW, to set this quantity, one should use setpci,
> right?

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Unmounting and ejecting the root fs on shutdown.

2001-03-01 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Per Erik Stendahl wrote:

>
> Nah, that looks too easy! ;-)
>
> > This might save everyone some pain:
> > from hdparm(8) man page (mine has some format
> > bugs, but you get the picture)
> >

> Is it true that the root fs is left mounted read-only? What is the
> rationale behind this? It seems to me that it would be better to
> completely unmount it and do whatever cleaning up is required (like
> cdrom_release()?). But I've been known to miss important issues before!
> :-)
>
> BTW, what would be the best way to determine which devices are cdrom
> devices? Looks like /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info could be of use but what
> happens on a computer with more than one cdrom device?
>

Read about devfs option in 2.4 kernel.  it puts only devices that exist
into /dev/cdroms/cdrom0, dev/cdroms/cdrom1, etc.

and if hdparm works (and it must since redhat's installer ejects it's
cd when rebooting) and you still are looking for a solution, well
no comment.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Unmounting and ejecting the root fs on shutdown.

2001-03-01 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Per Erik Stendahl wrote:


 Nah, that looks too easy! ;-)

  This might save everyone some pain:
  from hdparm(8) man page (mine has some format
  bugs, but you get the picture)
 

 Is it true that the root fs is left mounted read-only? What is the
 rationale behind this? It seems to me that it would be better to
 completely unmount it and do whatever cleaning up is required (like
 cdrom_release()?). But I've been known to miss important issues before!
 :-)

 BTW, what would be the best way to determine which devices are cdrom
 devices? Looks like /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info could be of use but what
 happens on a computer with more than one cdrom device?


Read about devfs option in 2.4 kernel.  it puts only devices that exist
into /dev/cdroms/cdrom0, dev/cdroms/cdrom1, etc.

and if hdparm works (and it must since redhat's installer ejects it's
cd when rebooting) and you still are looking for a solution, well
no comment.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: [Newbie] Re: Problem creating filesystem

2001-03-01 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Rogerio Brito wrote:

 On Feb 26 2001, Jeremy Jackson wrote:
  Carlos Fernandez Sanz wrote:
   The IDE controller is
 Bus  0, device  17, function  0:
   Unknown mass storage controller: Promise Technology Unknown device (rev
   2).
 Vendor id=105a. Device id=d30.
 Medium devsel.  IRQ 10.  Master Capable.  Latency=32.
 
  Unrelated to disk "problem", you might want to set your PCI latency timer in
  BIOS to 64 or more.

This should be accessible in your BIOS setup.  I'm basing my comments on
one NIC driver complaining in my logs and overriding settings lower that 64;
however the general idea is to trade off latency for throughput.  If I go crazy,
like 192 or so, on *my* system, sound card starts to pop a bit, indicating that
it's fifo buffer is smaller that that and is emptying when other devices
are using the bus at the same time (it's like a timeslice)



 Ok, I understand that this is probably off-topic and way too
 basic, but what exactly would this do, in layman terms? Would
 the latency being set to 32 result in any potential data
 corruption?  BTW, to set this quantity, one should use setpci,
 right?

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: How to set hdparms for ide-scsi devices on devfs?

2001-02-28 Thread Jeremy Jackson


Eduard Hasenleithner wrote:

> Sorry, if this issue was already discussed in lkml. I didn't find
> a reference to this at www.geocrawler.com
>
> My Problem:
> I want to set the unmaskirq and dma -flag for my ide cd-recorder.
> The Problem is, that devfs creates no ide device, but only
> the /dev/scsi/../{cd,general} devices are created. And hdparm
> don't accepts this devices for setting the ide-parameters.
>
> My current workaround is to create a /dev/hd? device "by hand"
> at system startup. This is not very beautiful. Furthermore, if
> the device numbers in devfs are deactivated, this won't work
> anymore.
>
> I can live with my current solution. But i would be very happy
> if someone can present a clean solution.
>
> I posted this message intentionally not on the devfs mailing list
> as i think this problem is related to accessing the same device
> through different /dev entries. Under devfs, the /dev/ide/...
> device node gets allocated after the corresponding ide-xx.o has
> been loaded. But this is not possible with ide-scsi claiming
> the device :(
>
> Thanks in advance

workaround - before ide-scsi is loaded in boot sequence
(finding is left as an exercise to the reader :) do:

modprobe ide-cd
hdparm -u 1 -d 1 /dev/xxx
rmmod ide-cd

might have to do near top of /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit under redhat,
but this is good since problems will happen before root filesystem
is remounted read-write, so any problems with hdparm settings
won't mess up disk.



-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Unmounting and ejecting the root fs on shutdown.

2001-02-28 Thread Jeremy Jackson


David Balazic wrote:

  Per Erik Stendahl wrote :

  > What I do know now is how to make the kernel not lock the CD in the
  > first place. Simply ioctl(/dev/cdrom, CDROM_CLEAR_OPTIONS, CDO_LOCK)

  > from /linuxrc in the initrd. This way I can remove the CD anytime
  > I please which is enough for me. And I dont have to patch the
kernel.

  Or : echo 0 > /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/lock
  ( I am not sure if this is the right filename )

  Or run magicdev ;-)


This might save everyone some pain:
from hdparm(8) man page (mine has some format
bugs, but you get the picture)

-L Set  the  drive's  doorlock  flag.  Setting this to
  will lock the door  mechanism  of  some  removeable
  hard drives (eg. Syquest, ZIP, Jazz..), and setting
  it to maintains the door locking mechanism automat­
  ically, depending on drive usage (locked whenever a
  filesystem is mounted).  But  on  system  shutdown,
  this  can be a nuisance if the root partition is on
  a removeable disk, since the root partition is left
  mounted  (read-only)  after shutdown.  So, by using
  this command to unlock the door -b after  the  root
  filesystem  is  remounted  read-only,  one can then
  remove the cartridge from the drive after shutdown.


  you seem to be into reading the source (tm) so hdparm's
might be a good place to look (if it doesn't just work like it
says above)

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Promise Ultra100 IDE PDC20265 chip problem

2001-02-28 Thread Jeremy Jackson


[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> (I am not subscribed to this list, if it is in fact a list. Please CC
any
> replies to me directly - Thanks)
>
> I am attempting to install the new beta release of Red Hat (fisher) on
my
> home computer. It has an Asus A7V motherboard and a Promise Ultra100
IDE
> controller (PDC20265 chip), with two partitions. Windows ME is
installed in
> the first partition. The second one is where I'm attempting to install
Red
> Hat.
>
> In previous releases of the Linux kernel, my hard drive was not seen
at all.
> I could go all the way up to the point in the Red Hat installation
where it
> wanted to do disk geometry, and then said that I didn't have any mass
media
> device. Searching through various mail archives lead me to believe the

> culprit was the PDC20265 controller chip and the fact that it was too
new to
> be recognized.
>
> In the new kernel 2.4.0 (and thereby the fisher release of Red Hat), I
now
> see the error below printed out to the console when booting from the
Red Hat
> installation floppy. After the error is printed out, my computer
hangs. I
> apologize in advance if this is not a Linux kernel issue, and
appreciate any
> help that can be provided.
>
> --Pete
>
> [snip]
>
> PDC 20265: chipset revision 2
> PDC 20265: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
>
> [snip]
>
> Partition Check:
> hde: [PTBL] [1826/255/63] hde1 hde2 < hde5hde: dma_intr: status=0x51 {

> DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
> hde: dma_intr: error=0x10 { SectorIdNotFound }, LBAsect=32885055,
sector=0
> hde: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
>
> [last repeats 3-4 times]
>
> hde: DMA disabled
>

this looks like a sign that the kernel you're using is configured to try
to use

harddisk DMA right at boot.  That *could* cause problems in rare cases.
SectorIdNotFound looks like a bad sector on the harddisk though.
looks like you can't get into linux at all... try scandisk from windows
on Thorough setting (have to format linux partition as fat32 first).



-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Dynamically altering code segments

2001-02-28 Thread Jeremy Jackson


"Collins, Tom" wrote:

> Hi...
>
> This is my first post, so if this is off topic for this list, please
direct
> me
> to another one that is more appropriate.  Thanks
>
> That said, I am wanting to dynamically modify the kernel in specific
places
> to
> implement a custom kernel trace mechanism.  The general idea is that,
when
> the
> "trace" is off, there are NOP instruction sequences at various places
in the
> kernel.  When the "trace" is turned on, those same NOPs are replaced
by JMPs
> to code that implements the trace (such as logging events, using the
MSR and
> PMC's etc..).
>
> This was a trick that was done in my old days of OS/2 performance
tools
> developement to get trace information from the running kernel.  In
that
> case,
> we simply remapped the appropriate code segments to data segments (I
think
> back then it was called 'aliasing code segments') and used that
segment to
> make changes to the kernel code on the fly.
>
> Is it possible to do the same thing in Linux?
>

the CS and DS segment descriptors already both map 0-4G, the DS being
read-write.
what you want is to change page protections, the system call mprotect()
comes
to mind.



-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Dynamically altering code segments

2001-02-28 Thread Jeremy Jackson


"Collins, Tom" wrote:

 Hi...

 This is my first post, so if this is off topic for this list, please
direct
 me
 to another one that is more appropriate.  Thanks

 That said, I am wanting to dynamically modify the kernel in specific
places
 to
 implement a custom kernel trace mechanism.  The general idea is that,
when
 the
 "trace" is off, there are NOP instruction sequences at various places
in the
 kernel.  When the "trace" is turned on, those same NOPs are replaced
by JMPs
 to code that implements the trace (such as logging events, using the
MSR and
 PMC's etc..).

 This was a trick that was done in my old days of OS/2 performance
tools
 developement to get trace information from the running kernel.  In
that
 case,
 we simply remapped the appropriate code segments to data segments (I
think
 back then it was called 'aliasing code segments') and used that
segment to
 make changes to the kernel code on the fly.

 Is it possible to do the same thing in Linux?


the CS and DS segment descriptors already both map 0-4G, the DS being
read-write.
what you want is to change page protections, the system call mprotect()
comes
to mind.



-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Promise Ultra100 IDE PDC20265 chip problem

2001-02-28 Thread Jeremy Jackson


[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 (I am not subscribed to this list, if it is in fact a list. Please CC
any
 replies to me directly - Thanks)

 I am attempting to install the new beta release of Red Hat (fisher) on
my
 home computer. It has an Asus A7V motherboard and a Promise Ultra100
IDE
 controller (PDC20265 chip), with two partitions. Windows ME is
installed in
 the first partition. The second one is where I'm attempting to install
Red
 Hat.

 In previous releases of the Linux kernel, my hard drive was not seen
at all.
 I could go all the way up to the point in the Red Hat installation
where it
 wanted to do disk geometry, and then said that I didn't have any mass
media
 device. Searching through various mail archives lead me to believe the

 culprit was the PDC20265 controller chip and the fact that it was too
new to
 be recognized.

 In the new kernel 2.4.0 (and thereby the fisher release of Red Hat), I
now
 see the error below printed out to the console when booting from the
Red Hat
 installation floppy. After the error is printed out, my computer
hangs. I
 apologize in advance if this is not a Linux kernel issue, and
appreciate any
 help that can be provided.

 --Pete

 [snip]

 PDC 20265: chipset revision 2
 PDC 20265: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later

 [snip]

 Partition Check:
 hde: [PTBL] [1826/255/63] hde1 hde2  hde5hde: dma_intr: status=0x51 {

 DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
 hde: dma_intr: error=0x10 { SectorIdNotFound }, LBAsect=32885055,
sector=0
 hde: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }

 [last repeats 3-4 times]

 hde: DMA disabled


this looks like a sign that the kernel you're using is configured to try
to use

harddisk DMA right at boot.  That *could* cause problems in rare cases.
SectorIdNotFound looks like a bad sector on the harddisk though.
looks like you can't get into linux at all... try scandisk from windows
on Thorough setting (have to format linux partition as fat32 first).



-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Unmounting and ejecting the root fs on shutdown.

2001-02-28 Thread Jeremy Jackson


David Balazic wrote:

  Per Erik Stendahl wrote :

   What I do know now is how to make the kernel not lock the CD in the
   first place. Simply ioctl(/dev/cdrom, CDROM_CLEAR_OPTIONS, CDO_LOCK)

   from /linuxrc in the initrd. This way I can remove the CD anytime
   I please which is enough for me. And I dont have to patch the
kernel.

  Or : echo 0  /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/lock
  ( I am not sure if this is the right filename )

  Or run magicdev ;-)


This might save everyone some pain:
from hdparm(8) man page (mine has some format
bugs, but you get the picture)

-L Set  the  drive's  doorlock  flag.  Setting this to
  will lock the door  mechanism  of  some  removeable
  hard drives (eg. Syquest, ZIP, Jazz..), and setting
  it to maintains the door locking mechanism automat
  ically, depending on drive usage (locked whenever a
  filesystem is mounted).  But  on  system  shutdown,
  this  can be a nuisance if the root partition is on
  a removeable disk, since the root partition is left
  mounted  (read-only)  after shutdown.  So, by using
  this command to unlock the door -b after  the  root
  filesystem  is  remounted  read-only,  one can then
  remove the cartridge from the drive after shutdown.


  you seem to be into reading the source (tm) so hdparm's
might be a good place to look (if it doesn't just work like it
says above)

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: How to set hdparms for ide-scsi devices on devfs?

2001-02-28 Thread Jeremy Jackson


Eduard Hasenleithner wrote:

 Sorry, if this issue was already discussed in lkml. I didn't find
 a reference to this at www.geocrawler.com

 My Problem:
 I want to set the unmaskirq and dma -flag for my ide cd-recorder.
 The Problem is, that devfs creates no ide device, but only
 the /dev/scsi/../{cd,general} devices are created. And hdparm
 don't accepts this devices for setting the ide-parameters.

 My current workaround is to create a /dev/hd? device "by hand"
 at system startup. This is not very beautiful. Furthermore, if
 the device numbers in devfs are deactivated, this won't work
 anymore.

 I can live with my current solution. But i would be very happy
 if someone can present a clean solution.

 I posted this message intentionally not on the devfs mailing list
 as i think this problem is related to accessing the same device
 through different /dev entries. Under devfs, the /dev/ide/...
 device node gets allocated after the corresponding ide-xx.o has
 been loaded. But this is not possible with ide-scsi claiming
 the device :(

 Thanks in advance

workaround - before ide-scsi is loaded in boot sequence
(finding is left as an exercise to the reader :) do:

modprobe ide-cd
hdparm -u 1 -d 1 /dev/xxx
rmmod ide-cd

might have to do near top of /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit under redhat,
but this is good since problems will happen before root filesystem
is remounted read-write, so any problems with hdparm settings
won't mess up disk.



-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Problem creating filesystem

2001-02-26 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Carlos Fernandez Sanz wrote:

> I have just purchased a new HD and I'm getting problems creating a
> filesystem for it. I've done some research and some people claim the problem
> might be kernel related so I'm asking here just in case.
>
> The HD is a Maxtor 80 Gb, plugged to the Promise controller that comes with
> Asus A7V motherboards. The controller is ide2, and the HD is /dev/hde. ide0

how did you get it to recognise this controller?  kernel command line?
stock RH7's kernel 2.2.16-22 doesn't have automatic support.  I'd be
interested to know if 2.2.17-14 does, as I could use this on a system.

>
> and ide1 are working with no problems.
>
> -
> fdisk shows some warnings (but doesn't refuse to create the partition):
>
> [root@alhambra /sbin]# fdisk /dev/hde
> Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF
> disklabel
> Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
> until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
> content won't be recoverable.

This is normal for a blank disk; hopefully that's all this is.

>
>
> The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 15871.
> There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
> and could in certain setups cause problems with:
> 1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
> 2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
>(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

this is fine. just a note for the inexperienced.

>
> Warning: invalid flag 0xa855 of partition table 5 will be corrected by
> w(rite)

normal - related to first message.

>
>
> Command (m for help): n
> Command action
>e   extended
>p   primary partition (1-4)
> p
> Partition number (1-4): 1
> First cylinder (1-15871, default 1):
> Using default value 1
> Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-15871, default 15871):
> Using default value 15871
>
> Command (m for help): p
>
> Disk /dev/hde: 16 heads, 63 sectors, 15871 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 bytes
>
>Device BootStart   EndBlocks   Id  System
> /dev/hde1 1 15871   7998952+  83  Linux
>
> Command (m for help): w
> The partition table has been altered!
>
> Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
>
> WARNING: If you have created or modified any DOS 6.x
> partitions, please see the fdisk manual page for additional
> information.
> Syncing disks.

although it doesn't look like it's necessary, it's a good idea to
reboot here. (it usually gives a additional error if reboot needed)

>
> --
> When trying to create the filesystem, I get this:
>
> [root@alhambra /sbin]# ./mke2fs /dev/hde1
> mke2fs 1.18, 11-Nov-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
> /dev/hde1: Invalid argument passed to ext2 library while setting up
> superblock

sounds like an overflow.  try using badblocks to verify that the kernel
will allow access to all sectors in the partition.

badblocks -b 1024 -sv `fdisk -s /dev/hde1`

if that works, it looks like overflow in mke2fs or e2fs libraries; try:

delete partition 1 and make 2 more, each half of the disk,

try mke2fs /dev/hde1

if that works try mke2fs /dev/hde2;

if they both work then the overflow is likely the size of the disk;
but you have access to all of it in just two halves, until a fix is found.

>
> ---
>
> I'm using
> Linux version 2.2.17-14 ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) (gcc version
> egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux (egcs-1.1.2 release)) #1 Mon Feb 5 16:02:20 EST
> 2001
>
> The IDE controller is
>   Bus  0, device  17, function  0:
> Unknown mass storage controller: Promise Technology Unknown device (rev
> 2).
>   Vendor id=105a. Device id=d30.
>   Medium devsel.  IRQ 10.  Master Capable.  Latency=32.

Unrelated to disk "problem", you might want to set your PCI latency timer in
BIOS to 64 or more.

>
>   I/O at 0x9000 [0x9001].
>   I/O at 0x8800 [0x8801].
>   I/O at 0x8400 [0x8401].
>   I/O at 0x8000 [0x8001].
>   I/O at 0x7800 [0x7801].
>   Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xdd80 [0xdd80].
> [root@alhambra /proc]#

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: CLOCAL and TIOCMIWAIT

2001-02-26 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Ivan Passos wrote:

> Hello,
>
> A customer has just brought to my attention that when you try to use the
> TIOCMIWAIT ioctl with our boards and CLOCAL is enabled, you can't check
> changes in the DCD signal. He also mentioned that that is possible with
> the regular serial ports.
>
> As I understood, CLOCAL meant disabling DCD sensitivity, so if CLOCAL is
> disabled, no changes in DCD will be passed from hardware driver to the
> kernel or userspace. The way the serial driver is implemented, this is not
> true (i.e. even with CLOCAL enabled, you can still see DCD changes through
> the TIOCMIWAIT command).

I remember auditing the exact code where this happens, but on 2.0 or earlier.

I had written a simple program 10-20 lines C to count pulses at rate of 1 per

second give or take.  It turned out that the driver disabled the UART's
generation
of interrupts completely for certain signals.  I don't remember which
exactly, but
I think it was DCD; I was using CLOCAL so the hangups wouldn't close the
descriptor.  The problems was that by disabling the interrupt at the source,
the ioctl's to read the bits stopped working!  not what I wanted.

I'm afraid I can't help, other that to suggest that that behaviour can have
problems.
The extra irq traffic was probably the motivation for this optimisation, but
I don't know of anyone's modem hanging up frequently enough to measure the
extra load.  Only people crazy enough to use the built-in serial port ($0)
as opposed to an $500 industrial digital io card are likely to care though...

>
>
> My question is: what's the correct interpretation of CLOCAL?? If the
> serial driver's interpretation is the correct one, I'll be more than happy
> to change the Cyclades' driver to comply with that, I just want to make
> sure that this is the expected behavior before I patch the driver.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: New net features for added performance

2001-02-26 Thread Jeremy Jackson

"David S. Miller" wrote:

> Andi Kleen writes:
>  > Or did I misunderstand you?
>
> What is wrong with making methods, keyed off of the ethernet protocol
> ID, that can do the "I know where/how-long headers are" stuff for that
> protocol?  Only cards with the problem call into this function vector
> or however we arrange it, and then for those that don't have these
> problems at all we can make NULL a special value for this
> "post-header" pointer.
>

I had a dream about a NIC that would do exactly the above by itsself.
The dumb cards would use the above code, and the smart ones' drivers
would overload the functions and allow the NIC to do it.

"Tell me of the waters of your homeworld, Usul" :)

Except the driver interacts differently than netif_rx... knowing the
protocol it DMA's the header  only(it knows the length then too)

(SMC's epic100's descriptors can do this, but the card can't
do the de-mux on proto id, forcing the network core to run
in the ISR so the card can finish DMA and not exhaust it's
tiny memory.) The network code can
then do all the routing/netfilter/QoS stuff, and tell the card to DMA
the payload into the TX queue of another NIC (or queue the header
with a pointer to the payload in the PCI address space of the incoming
NIC heh heh) OR into the process' mmap'ed TCP receive buffer
ala SGI's STP.



-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: tcp stalls with 2.4 (but not 2.2)

2001-02-26 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Brian Grossman wrote:

> I'm seeing stalls sending packets to some clients.  I see this problem
> under 2.4 (2.4.1 and 2.4.1ac17) but not under 2.2.17.

compiled in ECN support? SYNcookies?  try disabling through /proc
tcp or udp? if udp check /proc/net/ipv4/ip_udpdloose or such

>
>
> My theory is there is an ICMP black hole between my server and some of its
> clients.  Is there a tool to pinpoint that black hole if it exists?

ping is your friend.  -s lets you set size of packet. (to
check for fragmentation) use tcpdump to capture
a trace of this or a tcp session.

email trace to me private if you want.

>
>
> Can anyone suggest another cause or a direction for investigation?
>
> Why does this affect 2.4 but not 2.2?
>
> The characteristics I've discovered so far:
>
> From strace of the server process, each write to the network is
> preceeded by a select on the output fd.  The select waits for a
> long time, after which the write succeeds.
>
> The packets are received by the client a couple minutes after my
> server sends them.
>
> The clients I have tested with are win98 and winNT.
>
> The router for both 2.4 and 2.2 servers is running 2.2.18 with
> ipvs (ipvs-1.0.2-2.2.18).
>
> That router does not block any ICMP.
>
> The behavior occurs on the 2.4 machine whether the packets are
> routed directly or are mangled by ipvs.
>
> I've tried the same machine with both 2.4 and 2.2, as well as
> another machine with just 2.2.  2.2 works.  2.4 doesn't.
>
> Both of my servers and the router I mentioned have two tulip
> network cards.
>
> The clients I've tested with are behind a modem through earthlink.
> Another I suspect to have same problem is behind a modem
> through Juno.
>
> I've tried adjusting both /proc/sys/net/ipv4/route/min_adv_mss and
> /proc/sys/net/ipv4/route/min_pmtu downward.  Do these require an
> ifconfig down/up to take effect?
>

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: tcp stalls with 2.4 (but not 2.2)

2001-02-26 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Brian Grossman wrote:

 I'm seeing stalls sending packets to some clients.  I see this problem
 under 2.4 (2.4.1 and 2.4.1ac17) but not under 2.2.17.

compiled in ECN support? SYNcookies?  try disabling through /proc
tcp or udp? if udp check /proc/net/ipv4/ip_udpdloose or such



 My theory is there is an ICMP black hole between my server and some of its
 clients.  Is there a tool to pinpoint that black hole if it exists?

ping is your friend.  -s lets you set size of packet. (to
check for fragmentation) use tcpdump to capture
a trace of this or a tcp session.

email trace to me private if you want.



 Can anyone suggest another cause or a direction for investigation?

 Why does this affect 2.4 but not 2.2?

 The characteristics I've discovered so far:

 From strace of the server process, each write to the network is
 preceeded by a select on the output fd.  The select waits for a
 long time, after which the write succeeds.

 The packets are received by the client a couple minutes after my
 server sends them.

 The clients I have tested with are win98 and winNT.

 The router for both 2.4 and 2.2 servers is running 2.2.18 with
 ipvs (ipvs-1.0.2-2.2.18).

 That router does not block any ICMP.

 The behavior occurs on the 2.4 machine whether the packets are
 routed directly or are mangled by ipvs.

 I've tried the same machine with both 2.4 and 2.2, as well as
 another machine with just 2.2.  2.2 works.  2.4 doesn't.

 Both of my servers and the router I mentioned have two tulip
 network cards.

 The clients I've tested with are behind a modem through earthlink.
 Another I suspect to have same problem is behind a modem
 through Juno.

 I've tried adjusting both /proc/sys/net/ipv4/route/min_adv_mss and
 /proc/sys/net/ipv4/route/min_pmtu downward.  Do these require an
 ifconfig down/up to take effect?


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: CLOCAL and TIOCMIWAIT

2001-02-26 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Ivan Passos wrote:

 Hello,

 A customer has just brought to my attention that when you try to use the
 TIOCMIWAIT ioctl with our boards and CLOCAL is enabled, you can't check
 changes in the DCD signal. He also mentioned that that is possible with
 the regular serial ports.

 As I understood, CLOCAL meant disabling DCD sensitivity, so if CLOCAL is
 disabled, no changes in DCD will be passed from hardware driver to the
 kernel or userspace. The way the serial driver is implemented, this is not
 true (i.e. even with CLOCAL enabled, you can still see DCD changes through
 the TIOCMIWAIT command).

I remember auditing the exact code where this happens, but on 2.0 or earlier.

I had written a simple program 10-20 lines C to count pulses at rate of 1 per

second give or take.  It turned out that the driver disabled the UART's
generation
of interrupts completely for certain signals.  I don't remember which
exactly, but
I think it was DCD; I was using CLOCAL so the hangups wouldn't close the
descriptor.  The problems was that by disabling the interrupt at the source,
the ioctl's to read the bits stopped working!  not what I wanted.

I'm afraid I can't help, other that to suggest that that behaviour can have
problems.
The extra irq traffic was probably the motivation for this optimisation, but
I don't know of anyone's modem hanging up frequently enough to measure the
extra load.  Only people crazy enough to use the built-in serial port ($0)
as opposed to an $500 industrial digital io card are likely to care though...



 My question is: what's the correct interpretation of CLOCAL?? If the
 serial driver's interpretation is the correct one, I'll be more than happy
 to change the Cyclades' driver to comply with that, I just want to make
 sure that this is the expected behavior before I patch the driver.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Problem creating filesystem

2001-02-26 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Carlos Fernandez Sanz wrote:

 I have just purchased a new HD and I'm getting problems creating a
 filesystem for it. I've done some research and some people claim the problem
 might be kernel related so I'm asking here just in case.

 The HD is a Maxtor 80 Gb, plugged to the Promise controller that comes with
 Asus A7V motherboards. The controller is ide2, and the HD is /dev/hde. ide0

how did you get it to recognise this controller?  kernel command line?
stock RH7's kernel 2.2.16-22 doesn't have automatic support.  I'd be
interested to know if 2.2.17-14 does, as I could use this on a system.


 and ide1 are working with no problems.

 -
 fdisk shows some warnings (but doesn't refuse to create the partition):

 [root@alhambra /sbin]# fdisk /dev/hde
 Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF
 disklabel
 Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
 until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
 content won't be recoverable.

This is normal for a blank disk; hopefully that's all this is.



 The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 15871.
 There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
 and could in certain setups cause problems with:
 1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
 2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

this is fine. just a note for the inexperienced.


 Warning: invalid flag 0xa855 of partition table 5 will be corrected by
 w(rite)

normal - related to first message.



 Command (m for help): n
 Command action
e   extended
p   primary partition (1-4)
 p
 Partition number (1-4): 1
 First cylinder (1-15871, default 1):
 Using default value 1
 Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-15871, default 15871):
 Using default value 15871

 Command (m for help): p

 Disk /dev/hde: 16 heads, 63 sectors, 15871 cylinders
 Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 bytes

Device BootStart   EndBlocks   Id  System
 /dev/hde1 1 15871   7998952+  83  Linux

 Command (m for help): w
 The partition table has been altered!

 Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

 WARNING: If you have created or modified any DOS 6.x
 partitions, please see the fdisk manual page for additional
 information.
 Syncing disks.

although it doesn't look like it's necessary, it's a good idea to
reboot here. (it usually gives a additional error if reboot needed)


 --
 When trying to create the filesystem, I get this:

 [root@alhambra /sbin]# ./mke2fs /dev/hde1
 mke2fs 1.18, 11-Nov-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
 /dev/hde1: Invalid argument passed to ext2 library while setting up
 superblock

sounds like an overflow.  try using badblocks to verify that the kernel
will allow access to all sectors in the partition.

badblocks -b 1024 -sv `fdisk -s /dev/hde1`

if that works, it looks like overflow in mke2fs or e2fs libraries; try:

delete partition 1 and make 2 more, each half of the disk,

try mke2fs /dev/hde1

if that works try mke2fs /dev/hde2;

if they both work then the overflow is likely the size of the disk;
but you have access to all of it in just two halves, until a fix is found.


 ---

 I'm using
 Linux version 2.2.17-14 ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) (gcc version
 egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux (egcs-1.1.2 release)) #1 Mon Feb 5 16:02:20 EST
 2001

 The IDE controller is
   Bus  0, device  17, function  0:
 Unknown mass storage controller: Promise Technology Unknown device (rev
 2).
   Vendor id=105a. Device id=d30.
   Medium devsel.  IRQ 10.  Master Capable.  Latency=32.

Unrelated to disk "problem", you might want to set your PCI latency timer in
BIOS to 64 or more.


   I/O at 0x9000 [0x9001].
   I/O at 0x8800 [0x8801].
   I/O at 0x8400 [0x8401].
   I/O at 0x8000 [0x8001].
   I/O at 0x7800 [0x7801].
   Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xdd80 [0xdd80].
 [root@alhambra /proc]#

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: New net features for added performance

2001-02-26 Thread Jeremy Jackson

"David S. Miller" wrote:

 Andi Kleen writes:
   Or did I misunderstand you?

 What is wrong with making methods, keyed off of the ethernet protocol
 ID, that can do the "I know where/how-long headers are" stuff for that
 protocol?  Only cards with the problem call into this function vector
 or however we arrange it, and then for those that don't have these
 problems at all we can make NULL a special value for this
 "post-header" pointer.


I had a dream about a NIC that would do exactly the above by itsself.
The dumb cards would use the above code, and the smart ones' drivers
would overload the functions and allow the NIC to do it.

"Tell me of the waters of your homeworld, Usul" :)

Except the driver interacts differently than netif_rx... knowing the
protocol it DMA's the header  only(it knows the length then too)

(SMC's epic100's descriptors can do this, but the card can't
do the de-mux on proto id, forcing the network core to run
in the ISR so the card can finish DMA and not exhaust it's
tiny memory.) The network code can
then do all the routing/netfilter/QoS stuff, and tell the card to DMA
the payload into the TX queue of another NIC (or queue the header
with a pointer to the payload in the PCI address space of the incoming
NIC heh heh) OR into the process' mmap'ed TCP receive buffer
ala SGI's STP.



-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: IDE floppy drives and devfs - no device nodes if no disk loaded atboot

2001-02-25 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Derrik Pates wrote:

> Subject says about all there is to say. I have figured out that IDE drives
> are enumerated as part of the boot-time partition check in
> fs/partitions/check.c, but if I don't have something loaded at boot time
> (IDE SuperDisk in PC at home, IDE Zip 100 in G3 tower at work), I never
> get device nodes at all with devfs. Something really needs to be done
> about this, IMHO.

hdparm's got a cmd line switch to unregiser/register and ide interface.
It tried it *once* and it just complained about cmd line args being wrong...
i'll have to look into it more.  when working it should help your situation.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: Should isa-pnp utilize the PnP BIOS?

2001-02-25 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Thomas Hood wrote:

> On my ThinkPad 600, The ThinkPad PnP BIOS configures
> all PnP devices at boot time.
>
> If I load the isa-pnp.o driver it never detects any ISA PnP
> devices: it says "isapnp: No Plug & Play device found".  This
> is unfortunate, because it means that device drivers can't
> find out from isa-pnp where the devices are.
>
> David Hinds's pcmcia-cs package contains driver code that
> interfaces with the PnP BIOS.  With it, one can list the resource
> usage of ISA PnP devices (serial and parallel ports, sound chip,
> etc.) and set them, using the "lspnp" and "setpnp" commands.
>
> Would it not be useful if the isa-pnp driver would fall back
> to utilizing the PnP BIOS (if possible) in order to read and

I would find this EXTREMELY usefull... my Compaq laptop's
hot-dock with power eject will only work if Linux uses
PnP BIOS's insert/eject methods.

I saw some code in early 2.3 that would talk to bios, i still have
a tarball, but it seems 2.4 only does hardware banging (best in
*most* cases...)

>
> change ISA PnP device configurations when it can't do this
> itself?  If so, could this perhaps be done by bringing the Hinds
> PnP BIOS driver into the kernel and interfacing isa-pnp to it?

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



Re: New net features for added performance

2001-02-25 Thread Jeremy Jackson

Andrew Morton wrote:

(kernel profile of TCP tx/rx)So, naively, the most which can be saved here by
optimising

> the skb and memory usage is 5% of networking load. (1% of
> system load @100 mbps)
>

For a local tx/rx.  (open question) What happens with
a router box with netfilter and queueing?  Perhaps
this type of optimisation will help more in that case?

think about a box with 4 1G NICs being able to
route AND do QoS per conntrack connection
(ala RSVP and such)

Really what I'm looking for is something like SGI's
STP (Scheduled Transfer Protocol).  mmap your
tcp recieve buffer, and have a card smart enough
to figure out header alignment, (i.e. know header
size based on protocol number) transfer only that,
let the kernel process it, then tell the card to DMA
the data from the buffer right into process memory.
(or other NIC)

Make it possible to have the performance of a
Juniper network processor + flexiblity of Linux.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



  1   2   >