Thread: [Ndiswrapper-general] What happens when I restart?
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From: Noel B. <no...@x-...> - 2005-01-07 00:26:11
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I'm sorry if this is a dumb question. I recently posted about problems with rapidly increasing "invalid misc" numbers on my BroadCom BCM4306 (rev 03) on FC3, using a very recent nightly tarball. (See http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php? thread_id=6271316&forum_id=36471) After an indeterminate (at least so far for me) while, my network connection becomes unusable -- can't even ping my AP. The only way I have found to get out of this situation is to restart the computer. (Occasionally, but more rarely, the whole system totally freezes -- can't move the cursor, can't switch to a text terminal with Ctrl-Alt-F5, can't restart X. But this is less frequent.) It doesn't work if I "ifdown, ifup" the interface. It doesn't work if I "service network restart" (which I think is more or less the same). The only thing I know to do is to restart the whole computer. Now, Linux is (according to popular mythology) supposed to work in such a way that it never needs to be restarted. I know that this is more like an ideal that is often not fully realized. But I'd like to know what it is that is happening to my network driver/card/whatever that is so severe that only a complete system reset can fix it. Is there something I can do short of restarting, to put it back in a "pristine" state? I can live with occasional (2-3 times a day) network freeze-ups like this, if I can recover in a less dramatic way (not rebooting). I will happily provide all the diagnostic output anybody requests. And I am also just dying of curiosity: What happens when I restart? TIA |
From: John H. <jc...@th...> - 2005-01-07 08:51:48
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Noel Bush wrote: >It doesn't work if I "ifdown, ifup" the interface. It doesn't work if I >"service network restart" (which I think is more or less the same). The >only thing I know to do is to restart the whole computer. > > This is often where modules come in handy: ifdown wlan0 rmmod ndiswrapper ifup wlan0 I had to do that for a while with some release or other: reloading ndiswrapper re-initialises the hardware I suspect. You do still occasionally need to reboot Linux: processes can hang unkillably with some NFS problems, I've also had processes hang unkillably on tape drives in the dim distant past when I had a tape drive. The worst culprit for forcing a reboot is the X server's display driver: dodgy binary-only drivers have been known to cause lock-ups: I had daily lock-ups a couple of years ago until I twigged that it was the OpenGL screensavers that triggered a bug. But mostly, no, you don't need to reboot: $ uptime 08:49:22 up 78 days, 6:54, 1 user, load average: 0.16, 0.05, 0.03 And the time before that was, as I recall, 129 days. The last reboot was a kernel security patch, the one before was a power failure (I knocked the cable out). jch |
From: Philip A. <ph...@ka...> - 2005-01-07 09:09:30
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On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 08:51:35AM +0000, John Haxby wrote: > Noel Bush wrote: > >It doesn't work if I "ifdown, ifup" the interface. It doesn't work if I > >"service network restart" (which I think is more or less the same). The > >only thing I know to do is to restart the whole computer. > > > > > This is often where modules come in handy: > > ifdown wlan0 > rmmod ndiswrapper Unfortunately in my case, this is the point where ndiswrapper causes the kernel to panic. (Although I don't have the original poster's connection death problem much thankfully.) Phil -- http://www.kantaka.co.uk/ .oOo. public key: http://www.kantaka.co.uk/gpg.txt |
From: Noel B. <no...@x-...> - 2005-01-07 16:11:20
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On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 09:09 +0000, Philip Armstrong wrote: > On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 08:51:35AM +0000, John Haxby wrote: > > Noel Bush wrote: > > >It doesn't work if I "ifdown, ifup" the interface. It doesn't work if I > > >"service network restart" (which I think is more or less the same). The > > >only thing I know to do is to restart the whole computer. > > > > > > > > This is often where modules come in handy: > > > > ifdown wlan0 > > rmmod ndiswrapper > > Unfortunately in my case, this is the point where ndiswrapper causes > the kernel to panic. (Although I don't have the original poster's > connection death problem much thankfully.) Whenever I try to rmmod ndiswrapper, I get a segfault the first time. Subsequent tries get the complaint that the module is in use and can't be unloaded. This happens even if I use "ndiswrapper -e" to remove the driver (and of course take down the interface). So it seems that in my case I cannot "reset" the situation without restarting the computer.... |
From: Jim C. <jc...@di...> - 2005-01-09 18:31:34
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Noel Bush wrote: >On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 09:09 +0000, Philip Armstrong wrote: > > >>On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 08:51:35AM +0000, John Haxby wrote: >> >> >>>Noel Bush wrote: >>> >>> >>>>It doesn't work if I "ifdown, ifup" the interface. It doesn't work if I >>>>"service network restart" (which I think is more or less the same). The >>>>only thing I know to do is to restart the whole computer. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>This is often where modules come in handy: >>> >>>ifdown wlan0 >>>rmmod ndiswrapper >>> >>> >>Unfortunately in my case, this is the point where ndiswrapper causes >>the kernel to panic. (Although I don't have the original poster's >>connection death problem much thankfully.) >> >> > >Whenever I try to rmmod ndiswrapper, I get a segfault the first time. >Subsequent tries get the complaint that the module is in use and can't >be unloaded. This happens even if I use "ndiswrapper -e" to remove the >driver (and of course take down the interface). > >So it seems that in my case I cannot "reset" the situation without >restarting the computer.... > > > if you build your own kernel, you can choose: my.config:CONFIG_MODULE_UNLOAD=y my.config:CONFIG_MODULE_FORCE_UNLOAD=y |