[cfarm-users] cfarm439 crashes and downtime

[Luke Yasuda]

On 2026-06-06 11:16, Jacob Bachmeyer wrote:
> On 6/5/26 05:03, Luke Yasuda via cfarm-users wrote:
>> Hi cfarm439 users,
>> 
>> Sorry, this email was sitting in my "Draft" folder for too long. As 
>> you know cfarm439 is a FreeBSD powerpc64le system. These days, 
>> cfarm439 keeps crashing everyday and I have basically no clue what's 
>> going on. Every time it crashes, it drops to FreeBSD kernel debugger, 
>> I have to restart it manually, so much it became one of my 
>> morning/evening routines. But when I'm traveling (like now), it's a 
>> pain to do it over a high latency 4G LTE mobile hotspot ssh 
>> connection, besides some small security concerns. Please forgive my 
>> "mild to severe" delay in dealing with cfarm439.
>> 
>> The good news is, in about 3 weeks I'll be back at ~/ to resume my 
>> maintenance duty. Meanwhile, questions for cfarm439 users: anyone has 
>> any idea what could cause the crash? Anyone setup things like daily 
>> cron job that may or may not have caused some issues? Anyone has any 
>> idea how I can help fix this issue?
> 
> I vaguely remember a previous thread with a similar issue of a crashing 
> FreeBSD host.  I seem to recall that it looked like a known bug that 
> had been fixed in the current kernel.  Could this be the same problem?

That was cfarm427. Back then it was indeed fixed by upgrading the 
system. But this time cfarm439 is upgraded about once a week, yet the 
issue continues.

> What is the backtrace when it drops to the kernel debugger, i.e. where 
> is it crashing?

Ah. I forgot to mention the backtrace. I couldn't catch one because the 
crash happened somewhat randomly, I need to connect to the virtio serial 
port of cfarm439 at all times to catch it. But the last time I tried to 
catch it, I left the serial console connected for a few days and nothing 
happened and I felt I was being played, somehow. I should try again to 
get the backtrace, maybe by redirecting stdout to a file or something, 
but this is not high priority for now (something of higher priority: 
sometimes could not recv/send emails).



-- 
Luke Yasuda
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