[comp.unix.i386] aha1542 and Archive 2150 Panic broblem solved

petri@digiw.UUCP (Petri Alhola) (03/07/90)

	I told about one month ago, that i have problems with
	1542 SCSI controller and Archive 2150 SCSI Streamer tape. 
	I found actual bug with help of Interactive systems technical
	support. The problem was that Faulty Tape Cardrdge caused Kernel
	Panic. It seems that there may be bug in aha 1542/ 1540 driver
	that when it receives error from tape drive it hangs SCSI bus and
	makes disk io inpossible and then causes panic. There is no afect if
	you change tape or disk drives, controllers or motherboards, If you
	have got box of faulty tapes, it will panic when you try to use these.

	Now the SCSI tape works nicely, i can now backup all of our systems
	over NFS with gnu tar.

	Petri Alhola
	petri@digiw.fi

larry@nstar.UUCP (Larry Snyder) (03/08/90)

In article <1173@digiw.UUCP>, petri@digiw.UUCP (Petri Alhola) writes:
> 
> 	Now the SCSI tape works nicely, i can now backup all of our systems
> 	over NFS with gnu tar.
> 

I am just wondering why you are using gnu tar verses the other versions
of tar out there?

The reason I ask is that I too will be looking for a replacment tar, and
would like to know why you selected the gnu release.

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petri@digiw.UUCP (Petri Alhola) (03/14/90)

In article <511257@nstar.UUCP> larry@nstar.UUCP (Larry Snyder) writes:
>
>I am just wondering why you are using gnu tar verses the other versions
>of tar out there?
>
>The reason I ask is that I too will be looking for a replacment tar, and
>would like to know why you selected the gnu release.
>

I am using gnu tar mostly becouse there is bug in ISC original tar
program , it just dumps core after few files tarred into tape from
large directiries/files like taring gnu emacs sources .
Gnu tar was relatively easy to port. I found two problems with it.
First, when i tared large number of files, it also dumped core. After
some bug hunting i found that it is caused by bug in original
directory library and malloc. When i replaced malloc with gnu malloc 
everything works fine. Other problem is that it still dumps core if there
if illegal filenames in directory, like ones containing controll
characters. Generaly i am wery satisfied gtar, it works fine and
some options like compress makes it easier to use
If there is intrest, i can send diffs for gtar 1.07 for 386/ix
in this newsgroup.

 Petri Alhola
 petri@digiw.fi

mike@antel.uucp (Michael Borza) (03/15/90)

In article <1175@digiw.UUCP> petri@digiw.UUCP (Petri Alhola) writes:
>
>I am using gnu tar mostly becouse there is bug in ISC original tar
>[...]
>everything works fine. Other problem is that it still dumps core if there
>if illegal filenames in directory, like ones containing controll
>characters. Generaly i am wery satisfied gtar, it works fine and

I've never read a formal specification of what constitutes a valid
UNIX filename, but my understanding is that it should be any string of
characters terminated by an ASCII NUL (boorishly assuming ASCII for the
present discussion).  In particular, I'd expect filenames to start using
a richer set of characters as the use of things like `internationalized'
software and less traditional methods of manipulating filenames (for
example, files created by graphics-based utilities under windowing
environments), becomes more prevalent.  If so, then this is clearly a
bug in gnu tar, and a serious one in software to be used for archiving
data.

mike borza.

-- 
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(416)335-5507              3325B Mainway, Burlington, Ont., Canada  L7M 1A6
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