Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!kth!draken!tut!santra!hemuli!tml
From: tml@hemuli.UUCP (Tor Lillqvist)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: Lines jamming on 9000/840, HP-UX 2.1
Summary: HPIMAGE suspicion grows
Message-ID: <3932@hemuli.UUCP>
Date: 8 Mar 89 12:44:20 GMT
References: <3928@hemuli.UUCP>
Reply-To: tml@hemuli.UUCP (Tor Lillqvist)
Organization: Tech Rsrch Cntr of Finland
Lines: 50

The problem I described in the referenced article is getting out of
hands.  Lately we have had to reboot our system once a day because of
missing gettys.  After the last boot I started this script so that I
would notice when it happens again:

#!/bin/sh

TTY=ttyd21
SLEEP=120
while true; do
	PSLINE="`ps -ef | grep getty\ $TTY | grep -v grep`"
	if [ "$PSLINE" ]; then
		set $PSLINE
		kill $2
		sleep $SLEEP
	else
		WHOLINE="`who | grep $TTY`"
		if [ -z "$WHOLINE" ]; then
			mail tml <<!EOF!
No getty on line $TTY!
!EOF!
			exit
		else
			sleep $SLEEP
		fi
	fi
done

I didn't have to wait long.  After a couple of hours, it fired.  When
I went to the console, I noticed this message:

HPDBdaemon (/usr/vdx ): One user process terminated abnormally
HPDBdaemon (/usr/vdx ): while in critical section.
HPDBdaemon (/usr/vdx ): Processes of this hpdb will be killed.

Maybe I should describe the background a little: We are developing a
software system consisting of 20+ processes, many using HPIMAGE
(written in Pascal, ported from the HP1000...).

We have noticed that often all the processes suddenly die of a SIGKILL
(according to /usr/lib/acct/acctcom -f) without any reasonable cause,
leaving only a couple of hpimages and hpdbdaemon, which soon
disappear.

Sometimes when I start the system from an xterm window, running ksh,
even the ksh and xterm die!
-- 
Tor Lillqvist
Technical Research Centre of Finland, Computing Services
tml%hemuli.uucp@santra.hut.fi