austin@ATMOS.UMD.EDU (Austin L. Conaty) (05/13/91)
I have recently noticed a problem on our server node, a dn3500 with 2 760mb drives and 8mb memory. The disk seems to fill up continuously until it approaches 99%. (at which point I reset it) Upon reset, the disk space drops by 4-5%. Which is a pretty big chunk of the disk as far as I'm concerned. I noticed that when the node starts up, /etc/init has PID 1, and a few minutes later it starts up /etc/init again. It keeps starting init and then it dies, but each time it restarts, it uses more memory than the time before. For example, It is Sun. evening and less than 24 hours ago I shut and restarted the server. At that time the 'secondary /etc/init' had a size of ~1240KB. Now the size is over 21,000KB and the PID of the 'sec. init' is 4754. The next closest PID is 130. It keeps dying and restarting and growing I don't have a patch, but obviously I need one right???? PLEASE HELP!!!! Austin Conaty <I'm NOT engaged.> austin@meto.umd.edu
wjw@ebh.eb.ele.tue.nl (Willem Jan Withagen) (05/13/91)
In article <9105130048.AA08728@atmos.UMD.EDU>, austin@ATMOS.UMD.EDU (Austin L. Conaty) writes:
=> I have recently noticed a problem on our server node, a dn3500
=> with 2 760mb drives and 8mb memory. The disk seems to fill up
=> continuously until it approaches 99%. (at which point I reset it)
=> Upon reset, the disk space drops by 4-5%. Which is a pretty big
=> chunk of the disk as far as I'm concerned.
=>
=> I noticed that when the node starts up, /etc/init has PID 1,
=> and a few minutes later it starts up /etc/init again. It keeps
=> starting init and then it dies, but each time it restarts, it uses
=> more memory than the time before. For example, It is Sun. evening
=> and less than 24 hours ago I shut and restarted the server. At that
=> time the 'secondary /etc/init' had a size of ~1240KB. Now the size is
That's just about the correct size.
=> over 21,000KB and the PID of the 'sec. init' is 4754.
=> The next closest PID is 130. It keeps dying and restarting and growing
=> I don't have a patch, but obviously I need one right????
=> PLEASE HELP!!!!
The problems lies in the serial-lines (at least at our site). If you've
got lines opened in your /etc/ttys file. BUT nothing is connect to the port
'init' starts acting up. (check /usr/adm/{messages,serious-errs) if you got
syslog running)
It's a known problem, and comes from init trying to fork a getty on a port
which dies because it can't handle the port, again, again, .... and things
aren't getting cleaned out correctly. (Quote from the support-person)
Willem Jan.
--
Eindhoven University of Technology DomainName: wjw@eb.ele.tue.nl
Digital Systems Group, Room EH 10.10
P.O. 513 Tel: +31-40-473401
5600 MB Eindhoven The Netherlandsmatt@bacchus.esa.oz (Matt Atterbury) (05/14/91)
In article <1147@eba.eb.ele.tue.nl> wjw@ebh.eb.ele.tue.nl (Willem Jan Withagen) writes:
The problems lies in the serial-lines ...
It's a known problem, and comes from init trying to fork a getty ...
It's a known problem with every version of UNIX I've used. init tries
to spawn a getty, the getty dies coz of trouble opening/reading the
port, so init does its job and restarts a new getty.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matt Atterbury [matt@bacchus.esa.oz.au] Expert Solutions Australia, Melbourne
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