kernel-packages team mailing list archive

[Steve Langasek <steve.langasek@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jan 08, 2014 at 06:47:03PM -0000, Christopher M. Penalver wrote:

> Steve Langasek, thank you for your comment. While it is always appreciated
> when a developer steps in and advises to a bug report, a portion of your
> comments don't make sense (which I'm happy to take off report, but they
> are relevant here).  Regarding your comments:

> >"This bug very clearly has nothing at all to do with the BIOS."

> This wouldn't be clear to everyone, and just saying so doesn't clear
> this up for folks.

It wouldn't be clear to everyone, but it *should* be clear to anyone who's
involved in triaging kernel bug reports.  If you're going to be asking bug
submitters to take time to test with a newer BIOS, you should have a very
good reason for it; otherwise you're wasting the valuable resource of our
bug submitters' time, and filling the bug report with irrelevancies that
do nothing to help fix the user's issue or improve Ubuntu.

And in some cases, causing bugs to expire out of the system for invalid
reasons.

>> "Christopher, it is inappropriate to ask bug submitters to test with a
>> new BIOS for bugs like this - the BIOS is entirely unrelated to the
>> network filesystem layer,..."

> Ok, but the BIOS does have a hand in a well functioning system, of which
> the network filesystem layer depends on. No?

No.  The network filesystem layer *is unrelated to the BIOS*.

And if you don't know this, you should not be following up to bugs asking
users to do tests with a newer BIOS.

Almost none of what the kernel does depends on the BIOS.  There are only a
few exceptions: suspend/resume support, power management, some aspects of
video setup, hotkeys.  Outside of this, the kernel is directly responsible
for the hardware, and any bugs are kernel bugs, not BIOS bugs.

>> "...if upgrading the BIOS did have any effect, it would be *irrelevant*
>> to the bug at hand."

> Wouldn't the updated BIOS having a positive affect, be the exact reason
> why one would want to update, in order to eliminating collateral damage
> from a buggy BIOS?

No.  Any effect here is *not* because the BIOS is buggy, it's because modern
kernels and firmware are complex and changing the BIOS could
*coincidentally* work around this bug for one user.  But it doesn't fix the
bug, and doesn't help other users who are experiencing this bug.

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Kernel
Packages, which is subscribed to linux in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1118447

Title:
  Race condition with network and NFS mounts causes boottime hang

Status in “linux” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in “nfs-utils” package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete

Bug description:
  I seem to experience a race condition during boot of my ubuntu 12.04 server: In approx. one of seven boots, the server hangs during bootup.
  This is what I see on the screen:

  After the line

   * Starting configure network device

  there is a short delay of about 1 second, then messages continue. I
  see

   * Starting Mount network filesystems [ OK ]
   * Starting set sysctls from /etc/sysctl.conf [ OK ]
   * Starting configure network device [ OK ]
   * Stopping Mount network filesystems [ OK ]
   * Stopping set sysctls from /etc/sysctl.conf [ OK ]
   * Starting Block the mounting event for NFS filesytems until statd is running [ OK ]
   * Stopping Block the mounting event for NFS filesytems until statd is running [ OK ]
   * Starting Block the mounting event for NFS filesytems until statd is running [ OK ]
   * Stopping Block the mounting event for NFS filesytems until statd is running [ OK ]

  The last messages repeats several times, and then the boot process hangs.
  In 6/7 of cases, I wait for a minute, and after that bootup continues.

  But in approx 1/7 cases, the system hangs at this point forever. The
  machine does not respond to CTRL-ALT-DEL, I have to reboot it using
  SysRq-Keys.

  WORKAROUND: Setting the NFS entries in fstab to "noauto" completely removes the problem:
  There is no timeout during boot, and no lockup any more. The machine boote smoothly with the NFS-shares unmounted. After the machine is up, we can manually mount the NFS-shares without a problem.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
  Package: linux-image-3.2.0-37-generic 3.2.0-37.58
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-37.58-generic 3.2.35
  Uname: Linux 3.2.0-37-generic x86_64
  AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.24.
  AplayDevices: aplay: device_list:252: keine Soundkarten gefunden ...
  ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu17.1
  Architecture: amd64
  ArecordDevices: arecord: device_list:252: keine Soundkarten gefunden ...
  AudioDevicesInUse: Error: command ['fuser', '-v', '/dev/snd/by-path', '/dev/snd/controlC1', '/dev/snd/hwC1D0', '/dev/snd/pcmC1D3p', '/dev/snd/controlC0', '/dev/snd/hwC0D0', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D0c', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D0p', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D1p', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D2c', '/dev/snd/seq', '/dev/snd/timer'] failed with exit code 1:
  CRDA: Error: command ['iw', 'reg', 'get'] failed with exit code 1: nl80211 not found.
  CurrentDmesg: [   85.200104] lxcbr0: no IPv6 routers present
  Date: Thu Feb  7 15:50:40 2013
  HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=6c172536-57cc-4deb-867a-0718d572f23e
  IwConfig:
   lo        no wireless extensions.

   eth0      no wireless extensions.

   lxcbr0    no wireless extensions.
  MachineType: To be filled by O.E.M. To be filled by O.E.M.
  MarkForUpload: True
  ProcEnviron:
   LANGUAGE=de:en
   TERM=xterm
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  ProcFB: 0 radeondrmfb
  ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-37-generic root=/dev/mapper/lvmvg-root ro debug splash vt.handoff=7
  PulseList: Error: command ['pacmd', 'list'] failed with exit code 1: Es läuft kein PulseAudio-Dienst oder nicht als Sessiondienst.
  RelatedPackageVersions:
   linux-restricted-modules-3.2.0-37-generic N/A
   linux-backports-modules-3.2.0-37-generic  N/A
   linux-firmware                            1.79.1
  RfKill:

  SourcePackage: linux
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-04-28 (285 days ago)
  dmi.bios.date: 07/04/2012
  dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
  dmi.bios.version: 0302
  dmi.board.asset.tag: To be filled by O.E.M.
  dmi.board.name: M5A97 EVO R2.0
  dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
  dmi.board.version: Rev 1.xx
  dmi.chassis.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
  dmi.chassis.type: 3
  dmi.chassis.vendor: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
  dmi.chassis.version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
  dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr0302:bd07/04/2012:svnTobefilledbyO.E.M.:pnTobefilledbyO.E.M.:pvrTobefilledbyO.E.M.:rvnASUSTeKCOMPUTERINC.:rnM5A97EVOR2.0:rvrRev1.xx:cvnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:ct3:cvrToBeFilledByO.E.M.:
  dmi.product.name: To be filled by O.E.M.
  dmi.product.version: To be filled by O.E.M.
  dmi.sys.vendor: To be filled by O.E.M.

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1118447/+subscriptions