Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

My computer is a Pentium with PII, built in 1998.  The problem appears to 
be something wrong with a PCI bridge which causes linux to crash whenever 
you access the above file.  Someone else crashed it with cat, someone 
trying to do a backup, and I even crashed it with md5sum.  From what is 
said below, these seem to be temporary files or a 'virtual file system 
which stores info' that can be bypassed (all of /proc) during a backup.

One time md5sum worked but then tar crashed things, and a few times before 
this tar worked but then it did not (I kept trying every time it crashed) 
so on the theory that rebooting would change the file, I rebooted twice 
(the first time I thought I might get the old file back and not get a new 
one until exiting linux) and this worked and I was able to tar things.

Martin Mares is the one who wrote offering to improve mdacon so it would 
have a scroll buffer.  I will write suggesting my solution.

The PCI bridge is PIIX4 APCI and uses the file of the above name.  Other 
bridges use different names.  Can anyone on this list explain what a PCI 
bridge is and does?

The kernel may not have anything to do with it since SW71 has a later 
kernel (later than 1998).
----------------

                           Re: /proc/bus/pci/00/07.3

   Martin Mares (mj AT ucw.cz)
   Sat, 17 Oct 1998 12:04:59 +0200

     _________________________________________________________________

   Hi,

   > I have some problems with recent kernels.
   > When I try to read the file /proc/bus/pci/00/07.3
   > the system hangs. I cant even switch VT-s.

   This  is  a  known bug in Intel PIIX4 chip you have -- it locks up the
   system
   when   attempting   to   read  one  of  its  configuration  registers.
   Fortunately, this
   register  is  not  in  the  standard header region available to normal
   users --
   you must be root to crash the system.

   Have a nice fortnight
--
Martin `MJ' Mares   <mj AT ucw.cz>   [7]http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mj/

------------------------------
   Q: How do I fix the SCSI tape drive errors I encounter when backing up
   the /proc directory?

   I  have  a system with an HP 1599 SCSI internal tape drive. Everything
   worked fine until I tried to do a complete system backup.

   Here's the tar error:

   proc/bus/pci/00/
   proc/bus/pci/00/13.0
   proc/bus/pci/00/11.0
   proc/bus/pci/00/07.3
   proc/bus/pci/00/07.2
   proc/bus/pci/00/07.1
   proc/bus/pci/00/07.0

   tar: Cannot write to /dev/st0: Input/output error
   tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

   A:  Exclude  the  /proc  directory  from your backups. It is a virtual
   filesystem, storing information on the status of your hardware and all
   running tasks.


On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, sindi keesan wrote:

> At /proc/bus/pci/00/07.3 the tar process stalls and I cannot exit with Ctrl-C 
> or Ctrl-Alt-Del.  This happened twice.  On the one remaining working computer 
> there is no such file but there are a bunch of other files in that directory 
> with similar names, all 256 bytes, all today's date.  Are these temporary 
> files that I could safely delete?  I don't find info in my big linux book 
> about this.
>
> Both computers do have a 00.0 with different md5sums.