From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S263505AbUCTSQc (ORCPT ); Sat, 20 Mar 2004 13:16:32 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263507AbUCTSQc (ORCPT ); Sat, 20 Mar 2004 13:16:32 -0500 Received: from web10401.mail.yahoo.com ([216.136.130.93]:20750 "HELO web10401.mail.yahoo.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S263505AbUCTSQb (ORCPT ); Sat, 20 Mar 2004 13:16:31 -0500 Message-ID: <20040320181630.27185.qmail@web10401.mail.yahoo.com> Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 10:16:30 -0800 (PST) From: "Michael W. Shaffer" Subject: Kernel 2.6.4 Hang in utime() on swap file To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org I have a Debian Sarge system running a 2.6 kernel (tested with 2.6.2, 2.6.3, 2.6.4 with the same behavior as described here), and am seeing un-killable hanging processes with our particular backup product. When the backup disk agent process is running, one the the last files it tries to back up is a swap file at the path /swapfile00. The read of the file appears to work fine, but then it wants to call utime() to reset the atime/mtime on the file, and at this point the process becomes infinitely hung, doing nothing, no more output from strace, never terminating. This only occurs if the swapfile is actively in use when the backup runs. If I run swapoff to deactivate the swapfile, then the utime() call apparently completes and the process immediately finishes and exits normally. If the swapfile is not in use at all, everything works fine. As a workaround, I am just going to leave this swapfile inactive, since it's not really used much anyway. I do not observe this behavior on the same machine running a 2.4.21-xfs kernel. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html