Description of problem: While to attempting to verify our backup/restore procedure for RHEL5 I have uncovered what seems to be a bug in the ST driver The Driver causes a Panic condition when attempting read or write to tape when using a blocksize in at or above 10240 OR if the tape has previously been formatted at a block size that is not a factor of the current block size Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: with new tape mt -f /dev/st0 setblk 16384 pax -w -d -b 16384 -f /dev/st0 <filename> tar -tvf /dev/nst0 Actual results: Kernel Panic Expected results: tape read error (tar defaults to 10240 and shouldnt read the tape) How reproducible: with same tape from above mt -f /dev/st0 setblk 10240 pax -w -d -b 10240 -f /dev/st0 <filename> Actual results: Kernel Panic Expected results: The data should be written to the tape Additional info: A patched driver has been released by Dell that addresses this issue: http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R168261&formatcnt=1&libid=0&fileid=228248 also there is a trouble ticked available in the support request ticked 1818038
This seems to be kernel bug, changing component...
The upstream commit that fixes this bug: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=9abe16c670bd3d4ab5519257514f9f291383d104 I will prepare kernel packages to test.
Could you please try a test kernel package from: http://people.redhat.com/ivecera/bz443645/ ?
I have installed kernel-2.6.18-91.el5.bz443645.x86_64.rpm Initial test results are good. previous conditions no longer produce a crash and thus far I have seen no issues with the new kernel. Will continue to do testing through out the day but I don't foresee any negative results.
Created attachment 304120 [details] Final patch sent to review
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux maintenance release. Product Management has requested further review of this request by Red Hat Engineering, for potential inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Update release for currently deployed products. This request is not yet committed for inclusion in an Update release.
in kernel-2.6.18-115.el5 You can download this test kernel from http://people.redhat.com/dzickus/el5
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on therefore solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2009-0225.html