UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

The same cpio script has been working for years without modifications, until the last couple of nights when we get the error
Segmentation Fault - core dumped and the cpio aborts. It appears to abort in relatively the same place every time and on multiple tapes.

Do I have a bad tape drive, memory issues or something else?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Has anything else changed - like an update/patch to run-time libraries, minor OS update, etc.?

Jim,

There hasn't been any patches or os updates installed in months.

If the run fails near to the normal end time, you may have blown a kernel limit. I have seen this on cpio backups on unix System V where a find is piped to cpio.
If you have "sar", maybe take a look at "sar -v" for starters.

Methyl,

I am running system v and using a find to pipe to a cpio. Below are the results of my sar -v, but I don't know what this is telling me.

10:00:00 proc-sz ov s5inod-sz ov file-sz ov lock-max
10:20:00 915/2000 0 0/500 0 10106/ 0 0 8399/48000
10:40:00 930/2000 0 0/500 0 10164/ 0 0 8426/48000
11:00:00 966/2000 0 0/500 0 9953/ 0 0 8156/48000
11:20:00 944/2000 0 0/500 0 10463/ 0 0 8707/48000
11:40:00 951/2000 0 0/500 0 10198/ 0 0 8411/48000
12:00:00 967/2000 0 0/500 0 10162/ 0 0 8344/48000
12:20:00 935/2000 0 0/500 0 10072/ 0 0 8311/48000

For those few kernel parameters it is showing you:

Highest value used in that sample period/maximum value allowed by the kernel.
ov=number of times you overflowed

If this covers the time period when cpio failed running we can say that you have not exceeded:
Processes
S5 inodes
Open files
File locks

The file locks value is one that can blow during cpio backups. Maybe the reason that the maximum value is set so high.

I don't recognise your exact sar display, but there is much variation.


Afterthought. Is the tape full?

No tapes are not full. Backup blows up about 5 minutes into a 75 minute backup. We don't have any new processing going on during the backup. I am really at a loss and don't know what to do.