Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca!system
From: system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (System Admin (Mike Peterson))
Subject: Re: DN10000 problems
Message-ID: <1990Dec14.192114.5310@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>
Organization: University of Toronto Chemistry Department
References: <677@tron.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 90 19:21:14 GMT

In article <677@tron.UUCP> rtaylor@tron () writes:
>I have a weird situation with my DN10k and the posting listed below may
>be part (or all) of the solution :
>
>(1)
>My DN10k hangs up from time to time, i.e. if I try to crp to it, the shell
>hangs until I try to pst or ld it from another shell - then the crp attempt
>unhangs.

We have seen this kind of behaviour for 2 years - rlogin/telnet delay,
hang completely, or even lose the connection at random. This happens
almost daily, and the system crashes on average once a week when
TCP services "disappear" although tcpd is still running.
(Our DN10020 is on Ethernet, which is apparently strongly related to the
problem.)

>(2)
>Disk access time slows down dramatically for no apparent reason whatsoever.
>This problem is periodic and unpredictable.

How do/did you determine this? I'd like to test for this somehow,
because I'm pretty sure we see this behaviour when 2 I/O bound jobs
run against one another.

>(3)
>The DN10k crashes frequently. Afterwards, the orphans can be numerous - in
>one case, the dn10k lost track of 106 files ! :-()

To help with this problem, run 'update' from your /etc/rc file - Apollo
will tell you it is not needed, but we have lost very few files in
our many many crashes. Update does a 'sync' every 30 (?) seconds, not
the many minutes that Domain/OS keeps disks up to date.

>(4)
>Finally, the other day, the DN10k shut down with the symptoms noted
>in the posting.

Time for a new power supply board!
-- 
Mike Peterson, System Administrator, U/Toronto Department of Chemistry
E-mail: system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca
Tel: (416) 978-7094                  Fax: (416) 978-8775