We attempted an experiment in cleaning up some modprobe messages during initramfs bootup when the modules directory is missing by moving modprobe to modprobe-bin and replacing modprobe with the following simple shell script:
#!/bin/sh # Clean up bootup when modules are not present if [ -e "/lib/modules/'uname -r'/modules.dep" ] ; then /sbin/modprobe-bin $* else exit 0 fi Running this on any architecture causes a non fatal kernel BUG message out of the do_pipe() code path everytime modprobe is called. BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000014 c016a5e6 *pde = 00000000 Oops: 0000 [#1] CPU: 0 EIP: 0060:[<c016a5e6>] Not tainted VLI Using defaults from ksymoops -t elf32-i386 -a i386 EFLAGS: 00010286 (2.6.18_pro500-pc_target-x86_586 #2) eax: 00000000 ebx: bf8f9ae8 ecx: 00000000 edx: c16a00f0 esi: c16f0c80 edi: 00000011 ebp: c16f0bc0 esp: c16e9f40 ds: 007b es: 007b ss: 0068 preempt: 00000001 Stack: 00000000 dff64dc0 c13ff580 00000000 ffffffe9 dfe84a40 00000002 c16e8000 c169f41c 0808d581 c166b900 c010f5bd c166b934 c169f41c 0808d581 00000000 00000004 c16e9fbc bf8f9ae8 c16e9fa8 00000011 c16e8000 c0107737 c16e9fa8 Call Trace: [<c010f5bd>] [<c0107737>] [<c01030d7>] <0>Code: c6 c7 44 24 10 e9 ff ff ff 0f 84 1b 02 00 00 e8 91 2e ff ff 85 c0 89 c5 c7 44 24 10 e9 ff ff ff 0f 84 34 02 00 00 a1 d8 75 53 c0 <8b> 40 14 89 04 24 e8 8f ec 00 00 85 c0 89 c3 0f 84 0a 02 00 00 EIP: [<c016a5e6>] SS:ESP 0068:c16e9f40 Warning (Oops_read): Code line not seen, dumping what data is available >>EIP; c016a5e6 <do_pipe+46/2c0> <===== >>ebx; bf8f9ae8 <phys_startup_32+bf7f9ae8/c0000000> >>edx; c16a00f0 <pg0+f220f0/3f880400> >>esi; c16f0c80 <pg0+f72c80/3f880400> >>ebp; c16f0bc0 <pg0+f72bc0/3f880400> >>esp; c16e9f40 <pg0+f6bf40/3f880400> Trace; c010f5bd <do_page_fault+15d/75a> Trace; c0107737 <sys_pipe+17/60> Trace; c01030d7 <syscall_call+7/b> >>EIP; c016a5e6 <do_pipe+46/2c0> <===== I've done a quick skim of the code and don't quite see the issue there. Can the kernel not handle modprobe as a script that then executes another process this early in the boot sequence? Tnx, ~Deepak ps: Yes, I know this is "fix" to error messages is ugly. :) -- Deepak Saxena - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.plexity.net in the end, they will not say, "those were dark times," they will ask "why were their poets silent?" - Bertold Brecht - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/