Hi PostgreSQL developers! There have already been some reports about the mysterious Bus error that postmaster dies with on some architectures. Since that bites pretty hard, I did some investigations and tests on various architectures with various configurations.
As background, Debian currently builds with gcc 4.0.2 by default, and I use the latest 7.4.9 and 8.0.4 PostgreSQL versions. The default is to build with -O2. Here are the results: * On i386, PowerPC, AMD 64, S/390, arm, and Alpha all versions work fine with all tested compiler versions (gcc 3.3.3 and 4.0.2). * On IA 64, HP PARISC, and sparc postmaster 7.4 and 8.0 fail with a bus error when ran from initdb. It works fine as soon as I - build with gcc 3.3 or - build with -O0 or - run postmaster through initdb under gdb (grumpf) or - run postmaster through initdb under strace or - run postmaster directly (not through initdb). Yay Heisenbugs. :-/ Also, at least 8.1 on sparc works also well with gcc 4.0 and -O2. * And then there is MIPS, which really sucks. It constantly crashes in all configurations I tried it with: 8.0 with gcc-4.0 -O2 8.0 with gcc-4.0 -O0 8.0 with gcc-3.3 -O2 8.0 with gcc-3.3 -O2 and --disable-spinlocks 7.4 with gcc-4.0 -O2 original without any patches 7.4 with gcc-3.3 -O2 with recent MIPS spinlock patch This also produces an usable backtrace: Starting program: /home/mpitt/8.0/postgresql-8.0-8.0.3/debian/tmp/usr/lib/postgresql/8.0/bin/postmaster Program received signal SIGBUS, Bus error. 0x006e4f80 in InitializeGUCOptions () at guc.c:2360 2360 *conf->variable = conf->reset_val; (gdb) bt #0 0x006e4f80 in InitializeGUCOptions () at guc.c:2360 #1 0x005c7f68 in PostmasterMain (argc=1, argv=0x100539e0) at postmaster.c:439 #2 0x0056f874 in main (argc=1, argv=0x100539e0) at main.c:268 Some weeks ago I tracked down the particular variable it fails on (some float variable; unfortunately I forgot the name, but if it is important, I can redo the research), but I did not find any datatype mismatch or similar obvious things. Does anybody have an idea about these bus errors? Also, if somebody wants to track down the MIPS bug: I can offer temporary ssh access to a Debian sid with all required build dependencies, gdb, and the like for debugging. Thanks and have a nice day! Martin -- Martin Pitt http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer http://www.ubuntu.com Debian Developer http://www.debian.org In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?
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