Re: vkernel crash?

[Matthew Dillon <dillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

:Hi,
:
:I was having an little play with vkernels - pretty much followed the man page -
:except i was using vn1 and not vn0 for the file system.
:
:After doing some scping and other network related testing i closed my xterm
:controlling with the vkernel console in it by mistake - i was also logged into
:the physical machine via another ssh and pretty much as soon as i closed the
:xterm all connections to the main dfly box were lost as well and i am now
:unable to ping or see it on the network (the machine had been up for the last 4
:or 5 days after and rebuild to 1.9-dev via cvsup on wednesday from a fresh 1.8
:install).
:
:Unfortunately i am not in the same location as the machine at the moment
:so cannot tell if it has produced a proper crash or has just thrown the machine
:off the network.  However i guess this should be pretty easy for anyone to
:reproduce - simply start a vkernel from a ssh login and terminate the ssh
:connection.

    I haven't been able to reproduce it yet.  I have a test box and tried
    running a basic vkernel in an xterm ssh'd to the test box, then closing
    the xterm.  I also tried terminating the ssh process, but that didn't
    generate a crash either.  The vkernel running on the test box terminated
    but the test box was otherwise ok.

    Given your description, there is clearly a vkernel related bug here
    and hopefully you or I or someone else will be able to reproduce it and
    get a definitive crash dump or other information.

:Should vkernels be able to run in a 'headless' mode and any messages be
:directed to a file?

    Yes, definitely.  It would be easy for the vkernel to detect whether
    its 'console' is a tty or something else (like a regular file or logging
    socket), and then operate the console as a logging-only output device.

    Maybe 5 minutes of coding to do that... I want to encourage other
    developer to sink their teeth into the vkernel but if nobody submits
    or commits code to do that in the next few days, give me a reminder and
    I'll do it.

					-Matt
					Matthew Dillon 
					<dillon@backplane.com>