Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 142516
/sbin/pidof (and also pstree) hang the boot process on kernel 2.6.6 (fc2 binary release)
Last modified: 2015-01-04 17:13:47 EST
Description of problem: on older kernels 2.6.6 [see below], /sbin/pidof hangs the boot process (first in /sbin/start_udev [see bug #141774] but also in /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit) Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): FC3 system with all updates applied, running the last-known-working-kernel (see various USB-STORAGE bugs filed under kernel) from the FC2 updates ## ...ar-cache-apt-FC2+/archives >> wh pidof pidof is /sbin/pidof -- lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Nov 21 17:43 /sbin/pidof -> killall5 -- Name : SysVinit Relocations: (not relocatable) Version : 2.85 Vendor: Red Hat, Inc. Release : 34 Build Date: Thu 07 Oct 2004 05:22:07 AM PDT Install Date: Sun 21 Nov 2004 05:43:12 PM PST Build Host: tweety.build.redhat.com Group : System Environment/Base Source RPM: SysVinit-2.85-34.src.rpmSize : 166636 License: GPL Signature : DSA/SHA1, Wed 20 Oct 2004 09:02:40 AM PDT, Key ID b44269d04f2a6fd2Packager : Red Hat, Inc. <http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla> Summary : Programs which control basic system processes. Description : The SysVinit package contains a group of processes that control the very basic functions of your system. SysVinit includes the init program, the first program started by the Linux kernel when the system boots. Init then controls the startup, running, and shutdown of all other programs. ## ...ar-cache-apt-FC2+/archives >> rpm -qip kernel-2.6.6-1.435.2.3.i686.rpm Name : kernel Relocations: (not relocatable) Version : 2.6.6 Vendor: Red Hat, Inc. Release : 1.435.2.3 Build Date: Thu 01 Jul 2004 05:49:45 AM PDT Install Date: (not installed) Build Host: tweety.build.redhat.com Group : System Environment/Kernel Source RPM: kernel-2.6.6-1.435.2.3.src.rpm Size : 35220692 License: GPLv2 Signature : DSA/SHA1, Thu 01 Jul 2004 02:07:31 PM PDT, Key ID b44269d04f2a6fd2Packager : Red Hat, Inc. <http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla> Summary : The Linux kernel (the core of the Linux operating system). Description : The kernel package contains the Linux kernel (vmlinuz), the core of the Red Hat Linux operating system. The kernel handles the basic functions of the operating system: memory allocation, process allocation, device input and output, etc. How reproducible: on an up2date FC3 system, install kernel-2.6.6-1.435.2.3.i686.rpm and boot from it. starting udev, the system will hang. if you boot single user and type ^C when udev starts, you get a shell prompt. pidof will hang, but so will pstree.
If you strace it, where does it hang?
'strace ps' hangs while reading '/proc/6/stat'... it opens with fd of 7 and the next line is "read(7," with nothing to follow.
Assigning to kernel... that should definitely not hang.
seems fine to me in 2.6.9-1.715_FC3 can you still reproduce this ?
the bug was originally posted because of fc3 failing to run on kernels shipped with fc2. i have had huge problems with the fc3 kernels, so the point of posting a bug was to suggest that libraries and system utilities honor the quirks of relatively recent kernels (those from fc2)... i don't know if there are enough resources to do that...and it may be that my problems with the fc3 kernels are addressed in some of the fc4 dev kernels... i don't think of this as a kernel "bug" so much as a kernel change that prevents tools built against 2.6.9 kernel headers from working with 2.6.6 kernels. if there were a fix, it would only be implementable in sysvinit and pstools...because i wanted to be able to downgrade the kernel to the last-known-to-work kernel from fc2...instead of reverting my whole system. --stig
An update has been released for Fedora Core 3 (kernel-2.6.12-1.1372_FC3) which may contain a fix for your problem. Please update to this new kernel, and report whether or not it fixes your problem. If you have updated to Fedora Core 4 since this bug was opened, and the problem still occurs with the latest updates for that release, please change the version field of this bug to 'fc4'. Thank you.
as originally reported, this bug was for versions of the FC2 kernel (which had working drivers for my hardware that the early FC3 kernels lacked) used with FC3. I'm using the current fc3 kernels and they work for me. i no longer have the boot problems cited in this report.