Re: [cobalt-users] unfamiliar error message in /var/log/messages

[flash22@xxxxxxx]

On Sun, 17 Dec 2000, Albert Croft wrote:

> I found the following error message on a server I work with today in
> /var/log/messages while trying to determine what caused it to stop
> responding. The machine is running a 2.2.13C kernel, and I am trying to
> determine if the likely cause was a physical memory problem, or simply a
> 
> lack of memory or other software problem. The message, which appeared
> numerous times, was:
> 
> kernel: kmem_alloc: Bad slab magic (corrupt) (name=buffer_head)
> 
> Anyone familiar with it?

Well, this is what's in the kernel source...

                /* Very serious error - maybe panic() here? */
                kmem_report_alloc_err("Bad slab magic (corrupt)", cachep);

not a good sign ;) most of the buffer 'nagic' is to detect corrupt kernel
data , bad ram is a very good possability, or some kind of weird crash,
it's not an out of memory error, there are seperate checks for that, and
in any case allocating kernel memory is pretty rare except when loading
modules...