colinux-users

[coLinux-users] Problem with august snapshot of 0.8.0

[Josep Ma [JAZ] <jo...@gm...>]

Hello,

Yesterday i tried the august snapshot compile of the 0.8.0 release with 
some unexpected results.

I am happily using the july compile (with a minimal debian testing, with 
xfce and developer tools), but when i installed the august release 
(using the installer), launching the daemon caused an install machine 
reboot (i gues a BSOD, but windows reboots). In less than two seconds.
When the machine rebooted, i tried again with the same result. I 
reinstalled the july compile again, and stopped crashing.

This is on a windows xp sp2 machine with all updates, colinux installed 
as a service, launching it manually with "net start colinux" and my 
configuration is as follows:

> kernel=vmlinux
> cobd0=\DosDevices\I:\coLinux80\Debian-etch.ext3.3gb
> cobd1=\Device\Harddisk0\Partition5
> cobd3=\Device\Harddisk0\Partition3
> cobd4=\Device\Harddisk0\Partition4
> cofs0=\DosDevices\C:\
> cofs1=\DosDevices\I:\
> cofs2=\DosDevices\G:\
> mem=128
> eth0=tuntap
> eth1=pcap-bridge,ethernet
> root=/dev/cobd0
>
(Actually, the "kernel" line was the last one at the test time, but i've 
moved back to top)

I'm unsure what other information might be relevant to the problem, or 
if i could enable anything to get more information. I saw the 
colinux-debug-daemon, but i guess that gives information once it is 
launched, not while it launches.

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Re: [coLinux-users] Problem with august snapshot of 0.8.0

[<Use...@zo...>]

jo...@gm...(Josep Ma [JAZ])  05.09.07 21:01


>Hello,

>Yesterday i tried the august snapshot compile of the 0.8.0 release
>with some unexpected results.

>I am happily using the july compile (with a minimal debian testing,
>with xfce and developer tools), but when i installed the august
>release (using the installer), launching the daemon caused an install
>machine reboot (i gues a BSOD, but windows reboots). In less than two
>seconds. 

Marketing said: "BSODs are not good"
so XP is installed default to do an instant reboot instead of a BSOD
which the typical windows user would not understand anyway.

But you can change that behaviour easily. See link below.


>When the machine rebooted, i tried again with the same
>result. I reinstalled the july compile again, and stopped crashing.

>This is on a windows xp sp2 machine with all updates, colinux
>installed as a service, launching it manually with "net start colinux"

>I'm unsure what other information might be relevant to the problem, or
>if i could enable anything to get more information. I saw the
>colinux-debug-daemon, but i guess that gives information once it is
>launched, not while it launches.

A very nice text about debugging colinux you find'll here:

http://www.henrynestler.com/colinux/testing/devel-0.8.0/20070818-Bugcheck/debugging.txt

Especially in your case go to:
"Howto use Windows crash dump"
...
 Enable minidump (the small option, 64KB). Not need a full core dump.
 Don't set the ckeckbox for "automatic reboot after crash dump".
 The menu find via 
 keys Windows+Pause [or Control panel] 
   "System properties"]
   * Register: Extentions 
     * Frame: Start and Recover 
     * Button: Configure 
       * Frame: System errors
...


The mentioned program "kd" used to anylze the dump can be downloaded at MS.


i386.exe kd.exe


"Download the Debugging Tools for Windows"
http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols/debuggers/dbg_x86_6.7.05.1.exe
approx. 15MB.
It usuallay makes sense to always the most recent version.


If the problem is maybe deep inside windows, installed symbols
may give further help.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/symbolpkg.mspx
"Download Windows Symbol Packages" 
approx. 200MB but worth downloading and installing IMHO.


more readings:
"How to read the small memory dump files that Windows creates for debugging"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315263/EN-US/

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/default.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/installx86.mspx


Rainer 

Re: [coLinux-users] Problem with august snapshot of 0.8.0

[Henry N. <Hen...@Ar...>]

Rainer Zocholl wrote:
> A very nice text about debugging colinux you find'll here:
> 
> http://www.henrynestler.com/colinux/testing/devel-0.8.0/20070818-Bugcheck/debugging.txt

This file is temporaly only for an special build. Will later find on
http://colinux.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/colinux/branches/devel/doc/debugging

> ...
> http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/installx86.mspx

Rainer, thanks for your links, will add some in the text. :-)

-- 
Henry

Re: [coLinux-users] Problem with august snapshot of 0.8.0

[Josep Ma [JAZ] <jo...@gm...>]

Hello,

Seems the bug is less repeatable than what i initially thought. I 
reinstalled august release over july release after a (normal) system 
reboot, and all went fine.
Then, i thought it could be that i had been using colinux before 
installing it, so I decided to reinstall july release, launch colinux 
(july), stop it (the installer checks that it is so), reinstall august 
release and launch colinux (august).
Done this, and system restart again.
"Restart?" I thought. "I've changed the settings." I went to check and 
effectively i had the "automatic reboot on failure" disabled. I went to 
SYSTEMFOLDER\minidump, and nothing was there.

I have a special system configuration so something could have gone 
wrong. I don't have the swap on the system partition, but on a specific 
partition (a-la linux), and windows warned that it wouldn't generate 
minidumps if there wasn't a swap file in there.
So i setup an additional 2MB swap on it, rebooted, reinstalled july, 
started, reinstalled august, started, and no crash. Tried running it 
several times, no crash. Redone the installation several times, and 
still no crash.

I don't completely discard the driver going wrongly installed (although 
the setup has always said that it installed the corresponding version).

I'll continue running the august version in the following days to see if 
I eventually get another system crash and report it if so.


En/na George P Boutwell ha escrit:
> Something to try... Not sure if it'll fix your particular problem or
> not...  Run the august snapshot install, then before running any
> instance of colinux run colinux-deamon --remove-driver, colinux-daemon
> ---install-driver
>
> I know this should be taken care of in the install, but maybe something
> went awry and it wasn't able to as part of the install...
>
> George
>
>   


-- 
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 o o  | Josep Ma [JAZ]                 |
   *  | ICQ UIN: 7014661               |
 '-'  | Messenger: ja...@ho... |
      \-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~/

Re: [coLinux-users] Problem with august snapshot of 0.8.0

[Henry N. <Hen...@Ar...>]

Josep Ma [JAZ] wrote:
> Seems the bug is less repeatable than what i initially thought. I 
> reinstalled august release over july release after a (normal) system 
> reboot, and all went fine.
> Then, i thought it could be that i had been using colinux before 
> installing it, so I decided to reinstall july release, launch colinux 
> (july), stop it (the installer checks that it is so), reinstall august 
> release and launch colinux (august).
> Done this, and system restart again.

Do you used the same install directory on install page for both?
I use differ diretories for every install. So, it can be a problem.

-- 
Henry

Re: [coLinux-users] Problem with august snapshot of 0.8.0

[Henry N. <Hen...@Ar...>]

Josep Ma [JAZ] wrote:
>> kernel=vmlinux
>> cobd0=\DosDevices\I:\coLinux80\Debian-etch.ext3.3gb
>> cobd1=\Device\Harddisk0\Partition5
>> cobd3=\Device\Harddisk0\Partition3
>> cobd4=\Device\Harddisk0\Partition4
>> cofs0=\DosDevices\C:\
>> cofs1=\DosDevices\I:\
>> cofs2=\DosDevices\G:\
>> mem=128
>> eth0=tuntap
>> eth1=pcap-bridge,ethernet
>> root=/dev/cobd0
>>
> (Actually, the "kernel" line was the last one at the test time, but i've 
> moved back to top)

Your config does no matter for your problem, but would say here:
The position of kernel= can be in all lines.
Only the old coLinux 0.6.4 needs it as first command line prameter to 
switch from XML file to  the Command line args.

You can remove the text "\DosDevices\" from your configuration. The 
config has such lines than:

   kernel=vmlinux
   cobd0=I:\coLinux80\Debian-etch.ext3.3gb
   cobd1=\Device\Harddisk0\Partition5
   ...
   cofs0=C:\
   ...

Users from 0.6.x can use the tool XML2CFG to convert the XML file into 
new format:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=98788&package_id=217177&release_id=476227

> I'm unsure what other information might be relevant to the problem, or 
> if i could enable anything to get more information. I saw the 
> colinux-debug-daemon, but i guess that gives information once it is 
> launched, not while it launches.

Yes, colinux-debug-daemon is more to watch the background daemons. You 
can run it before you runs "net start colinux". But in the crashing case 
it can not save the datas to file. You can use it over Ethernet and 
catch all datas on a second PC. But this is some times also not helpful: 
The network dosn't send the last packets...

After colinux debugging is enabled (misc=31,prints=31) all debugs from 
inside coLinux-NT-Kernel (linux.sys) will also be see on DebugView from 
www.sysinternals.com "Miscellaneous Utilities". This tool can also run 
over network on second PC.

-- 
Henry