Could you see if my XFS-AA patch does anything for you? There are
changes to bdflush in it and I'd be interested to see if they go away. 

http://www.digitalroadkill.net/Patches/2.4.17-xfs-aa.patch.bz2


On Wed, 2002-01-30 at 15:41, Nathan Poznick wrote:
> 
> We've got a couple of development machines with hardware raid sets
> that we use XFS on.  A few weeks ago, while running 2.4.14-xfs, there
> was an Oops in bdflush, which caused bdflush to go defunct, and
> kupdated to go into some sort of loop, chewing one of the CPUs.  I
> upgraded the machine to 2.4.17-xfs, and for a few weeks it's been
> fine, but then this afternoon there was again an oops in bdflush,
> which again caused bdflush to go defunct, and kupdated to chew a CPU
> (along with an attempted sync, the shutdown process, etc).  Below is
> the decoded oops.  Any help is appreciated.  Thanks.
> 
> 
> ksymoops 0.7c on i686 2.4.17-xfs.  Options used
>      -V (default)
>      -k /proc/ksyms (default)
>      -l /proc/modules (default)
>      -o /lib/modules/2.4.17-xfs/ (default)
>      -m /boot/System.map-2.4.17-xfs (specified)
> 
> Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address
> 00000030
> c0192fe9
> *pde = 00000000
> Oops: 0000
> CPU:    0
> EIP:    0010:[<c0192fe9>]    Not tainted
> Using defaults from ksymoops -t elf32-i386 -a i386
> EFLAGS: 00010046
> eax: 00000000   ebx: 00000000   ecx: 00000000   edx: 00000000
> esi: 00000000   edi: 00000001   ebp: 00000000   esp: c4c49864
> ds: 0018   es: 0018   ss: 0018
> Process bdflush (pid: 6, stackpage=c4c49000)
> Stack: e5187ed8 00000000 00000000 c4c4996c c4c4996c c4c49b68 c4c49b68
> 0b000003 
>        f3242be0 00000000 00000004 cbf27200 c4c498c8 f3242be0 00000046
> 0b000010 
>        00000000 00000001 f79fd8f4 00000000 00000016 f71a5400 00000000
> 00000002 
> Call Trace: [<c0194b68>] [<c018f9ad>] [<c018f746>] [<c01919ce>]
> [<c01a103e>]
>    [<c021a41e>] [<c02208d2>] [<c022004a>] [<c0220244>] [<c02204b1>]
> [<c0238573>] 
>    [<c01ad063>] [<c01ad063>] [<c01a34b3>] [<c01a515f>] [<c0238573>]
> [<c01d12fb>] 
>    [<c01d23a6>] [<c01efd74>] [<c012b965>] [<c012b9ac>] [<c012c270>]
> [<c01edcf3>] 
>    [<c0182854>] [<c018188b>] [<c01edc78>] [<c01ede8b>] [<c01edc78>]
> [<c0133745>] 
>    [<c0133909>] [<c01369a4>] [<c0105000>] [<c01055db>] 
> Code: 8b 52 30 89 54 24 58 51 55 8b 44 24 60 50 8b 54 24 78 52 e8 
> 
> >>EIP; c0192fe9 <pagebuf_lookup+79/8c>   <=====
> Trace; c0194b68 <_pagebuf_handle_iovecs+dc/f0>
> Trace; c018f9ad <nlm4svc_callback+19/98>
> Trace; c018f746 <nlm4svc_proc_unshare+2/bc>
> Trace; c01919ce <devpts_root_readdir+12e/134>
> Trace; c01a103e <xfs_dm_punch_hole+1e/27c>
> Trace; c021a41e <vt_ioctl+6ce/2050>
> Trace; c02208d2 <do_con_trol+996/e28>
> Trace; c022004a <do_con_trol+10e/e28>
> Trace; c0220244 <do_con_trol+308/e28>
> Trace; c02204b1 <do_con_trol+575/e28>
> Trace; c0238573 <scsi_init_cmd_errh+a7/e0>
> Trace; c01ad063 <xfs_attr_leaf_toosmall+1af/244>
> Trace; c01ad063 <xfs_attr_leaf_toosmall+1af/244>
> Trace; c01a34b3 <xfs_alloc_ag_vextent_exact+9b/178>
> Trace; c01a515f <xfs_alloc_read_agf+93/23c>
> Trace; c0238573 <scsi_init_cmd_errh+a7/e0>
> Trace; c01d12fb <xfs_dir2_block_to_sf+f3/2f8>
> Trace; c01d23a6 <xfs_dir2_sf_lookup+c6/280>
> Trace; c01efd74 <xfs_trans_init+1384/1f30>
> Trace; c012b965 <vmalloc_area_pages+35/1b0>
> Trace; c012b9ac <vmalloc_area_pages+7c/1b0>
> Trace; c012c270 <kmem_cache_destroy+7c/fc>
> Trace; c01edcf3 <xfs_rename_target_checks+33/b8>
> Trace; c0182854 <nfsd_cache_init+124/138>
> Trace; c018188b <exp_rootfh+10f/278>
> Trace; c01edc78 <xfs_rename_error_checks+c0/108>
> Trace; c01ede8b <xfs_rename+113/c78>
> Trace; c01edc78 <xfs_rename_error_checks+c0/108>
> Trace; c0133745 <sys_ftruncate+4d/154>
> Trace; c0133909 <sys_truncate64+bd/184>
> Trace; c01369a4 <fsync_inode_buffers+140/18c>
> Trace; c0105000 <_stext+0/0>
> Trace; c01055db <kernel_thread+13/30>
> Code;  c0192fe9 <pagebuf_lookup+79/8c>
> 00000000 <_EIP>:
> Code;  c0192fe9 <pagebuf_lookup+79/8c>   <=====
>    0:   8b 52 30                  mov    0x30(%edx),%edx   <=====
> Code;  c0192fec <pagebuf_lookup+7c/8c>
>    3:   89 54 24 58               mov    %edx,0x58(%esp,1)
> Code;  c0192ff0 <pagebuf_lookup+80/8c>
>    7:   51                        push   %ecx
> Code;  c0192ff1 <pagebuf_lookup+81/8c>
>    8:   55                        push   %ebp
> Code;  c0192ff2 <pagebuf_lookup+82/8c>
>    9:   8b 44 24 60               mov    0x60(%esp,1),%eax
> Code;  c0192ff6 <pagebuf_lookup+86/8c>
>    d:   50                        push   %eax
> Code;  c0192ff7 <pagebuf_lookup+87/8c>
>    e:   8b 54 24 78               mov    0x78(%esp,1),%edx
> Code;  c0192ffb <pagebuf_lookup+8b/8c>
>   12:   52                        push   %edx
> Code;  c0192ffc <pagebuf_readahead+0/3c>
>   13:   e8 00 00 00 00            call   18 <_EIP+0x18> c0193001
> <pagebuf_readahead+5/3c>
-- 
Austin Gonyou
Systems Architect, CCNA
Coremetrics, Inc.
Phone: 512-698-7250
email: austin@coremetrics.com

"It is the part of a good shepherd to shear his flock, not to skin it."
Latin Proverb