2.4.21-pre3-ac4 oops in free_pages_ok

I too have been seeing this oops crash problem. I can consistantly reproduce mine by running:

  $ mke2fs -c -j -i 16768 /dev/hdc6

The interesting thing is running:

  $ mke2fs -j -i 16768 /dev/hdc6

does not cause an oops crash. The only difference being the bad block scan.

These are the outputs of ksymoops for the stack trace part of the oops output from. Kernel version is linux-2.4.21-pre3-ac4.

Adhoc c013f4b7 <try_to_free_buffers+c7/140>
Adhoc c013d8c9 <try_to_release_page+49/50>
Adhoc c01348ac <__free_pages+1c/20>
Adhoc c0133863 <shrink_cache+383/3b0>
Adhoc c01339f6 <shrink_caches+56/80>
Adhoc c0133a5c <try_to_free_pages_zone+3c/60>
Adhoc c013452e <balance_classzone+5e/1d0>
Adhoc c01347b2 <__alloc_pages+112/160>
Adhoc c012ebc1 <generic_file_write+3f1/710>
Adhoc c01344c6 <_alloc_pages+16/20>
Adhoc c012ebdd <generic_file_write+40d/710>
Adhoc c013b316 <sys_write+96/110>
Adhoc c0106f8b <system_call+33/38>

Adhoc c0134239 <__free_pages_ok+279/2a0>

I'm going to do further tests with the generic IDE driver instead of the NVIDIA one. Then I plan on teasing out the NVIDIA2 specific stuff from the ac4 patch and only applying them to a pre3 patched kernel.

- Bryan

As I thought and others felt too. It looks like the -ac4 patch for 2.4.21-pre3 has some error in it that causes an oops. I've tested a 2.4.21-pre3 with only the nvidia2 related patches from -ac4 added to it and it appears to be stable. A few kernel comples and 53 mke2fs with bad block scan runs and it stayed up. I'm now running memtest86 over night to be pedantic that it isn't a memory error. Sofar it passed the first pass of the tests, we'll see what happens over night.

What are some good system abuse test suites? In the past I've used kernel compiles in an endless loop. I'd do one run then compare the outputs from each run to the first run. Any difference constitutes a failure.