[comp.sys.sun] panic: vn_rele

mckay@courageous.ecn.purdue.edu (Dwight D. McKay) (04/26/89)

After calling the infamous Sun Hotline 4 times without any response, I'm
posting a note here in hopes someone has seen this problem and know of a
solution:

The Problem:
------------

	Periodically, (about once a week on a 4/280, less often on
3/XXX) we experience the following panic:

[orchestra]panic: vn_rele
[orchestra]syncing file systems... panic: vn_rele

(the "[orchestra]" stuff is added by out console switcher...)

This *appears* to happen under the following circumstances:

	- One or more filesystems are automounted from a 3/XXX series
file server.
	- One or more users are getting their home directory via automount.
	- One or more users are somewhere else in the file tree then
their automounted home directory.

These events happen weekly on our source machine (orchestra) and less
often elsewhere.  I've seen this panic happen most often on 4/280's, but
also on 3/280s and our 3/180.  So far I've been busy fixing other things
to really dig into this.  If you have looked at it, I'd love to hear from
you!

Question time:
--------------

	* Has anyone else had this panic?

	* Is there a fix for it?  (I don't believe Sun has one as I
*have* been called back by the Hotline folks when they have a fix for
something)

--Dwight D. McKay, ECN Workstation Software Support
--Purdue University, Engineering Computer Network
--Office: MSEE 104f, Phone: (317) 494-3561
--ARPAnet: mckay@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu, Usenet: ...rutgers!pur-ee!mckay

alan%prism@gatech.edu (Alan M. Brown) (05/07/89)

In article <8904111537.AA06180@courageous.ecn.purdue.edu>, mckay@courageous.ecn.purdue.edu (Dwight D. McKay) writes:
> After calling the infamous Sun Hotline 4 times without any response, [...]
> [...]
> 	Periodically, (about once a week on a 4/280, less often on
> 3/XXX) we experience the following panic:
> 
> [orchestra]panic: vn_rele
> [orchestra]syncing file systems... panic: vn_rele
> [...]
> 	* Is there a fix for it?  (I don't believe Sun has one as I
> *have* been called back by the Hotline folks when they have a fix for
> something)
> [...]

Way back in November I experienced multiple panics of two types:
	panic: vn_rele		(Sun service order #234504)
	panic: diskquota	(Sun service order #232522)
Sun claimed they were both related to a quota problem, and supplied me with
two patches: quota.o and spec_subr.o.  The engineer who supplied the patches
was Kevin Fox.

Very, very, Very, VERY, V*E*R*Y seldom has Sun resolved one of our
problems in a timely fashon.  I opened this problem on November 3 and
closed it on January 25.  BUT - the fix did resolve our problem, and they
were nice about it.


Alan M. Brown					Systems Support Specialist
						Office of Computing Services
telephone:  (404) 894-4660			Georgia Institute of Technology
Internet:   alan@prism.gatech.edu		Atlanta, Georgia  30332-0275
uucp:       ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!alan

OP.BOWMAN%SCIENCE.UTAH.EDU@wasatch.utah.edu (Pieter Bowman) (08/08/89)

We've been having problems with our Sun-3/280 file server crashing about
once per day during the week (though it usually stays up over the weekend)
with a vn_rele panic.  This past weekend we upgraded to SunOS 4.0.3 with
the hope that this would fix the problem (among others).  This evening the
thing crashed with the same panic.  Any help would be appreciated.

Pieter
bowman@science.utah.edu

haberman@s1.msi.umn.edu (Joe Habermann) (03/07/90)

We have a 3/260 and 3/60 that "panic: vn_rele" an a pretty regular basis.
Both machines are diskful servers running SunOS 4.0.1 and 4.0.3,
respectively.  The 3/260 runs quotas and the 3/60 does not.  It seems as
though the panics occur during periods of high disk activity like while a
dump is running.  There are no other system errors associated with the
panics.  The panics occur on our 3/60 about twice a week or so.

Has anyone else seen this behavior?

Thanks.
Joe Habermann / haberman@s1.msi.umn.edu / ..rutgers!umn-cs!haberman

sitongia@hao.ucar.edu (Leonard Sitongia) (03/08/90)

In article <5545@brazos.Rice.edu>, haberman@s1.msi.umn.edu (Joe
Habermann) writes:
> We have a 3/260 and 3/60 that "panic: vn_rele" an a pretty regular basis.
> Both machines are diskful servers running SunOS 4.0.1 and 4.0.3,
> respectively.  The 3/260 runs quotas and the 3/60 does not.  It seems as
> though the panics occur during periods of high disk activity like while a
> dump is running.  There are no other system errors associated with the
> panics.  The panics occur on our 3/60 about twice a week or so.

I believe that this has been fixed for some time now:

@(#)README 1.1 [limes] 89/09/08 SMI

This archive contains all the changes to the serial drivers and streams
code since SunOS 4.0.3 FCS 2, and a quickie install script as an example
of how to rebuild a kernel with the new drivers.

1025622	Panic bus error in streams close code

	The panic was being caused by a naive fix to #1019499, which
	introduced a race condition in the streams open/close code
	that could cause a stream to be torn down even though someone
	else was in the middle of opening it; the resulting corruption
	of data would cause the system to panic at some later time,
	normally after carrier was detected, getty opened the line,
	called vhangup, and closed the line. Specificly, the panic
	would occur most often during the "close" above, since the
	queue's q_qinfo pointer pointed at something unexpected. The
	fix is to back out the original fix for #1019499, and modify
	the streams code to properly handle the case of background
	processes holding a stream open that has been hung up.

Leonard E. Sitongia     System Manager		 (303) 497-1509
USPS Mail: High Altitude Observatory P.O. Box 3000 Boulder CO  80307
Internet:               sitongia@hao.ucar.edu
SPAN:			NSFGW::"hao.ucar.edu!sitongia"	[NSFGW=9580]