All too often, the root cause of a system crash cannot be located. When we are working with postmortem files, we are examining the last snapshot of the system. We can always find what caused the system to die, just as a coroner can find what finally ended a human life. However, finding the source of the problem, what actually caused the condition that caused the panic, or the death, is not always so easy. To say a person died of heart failure is easy. But finding the reason the heart stopped is not always as simple. The same is all too true with computers. The crash dump that we are going to examine in this case study is a perfect example of a system that panic'ed due to an unknown cause. We will quite quickly and easily find the reason that the system failed; however, we may never know who or what caused the condition that resulted in the panic. Additional crashes from the system would be useful, but only in hopes of finding a commonality and, eventually, the real troublemaker. This system crash dump was kindly provided by a Sun customer who wishes to remain anonymous. Information from the analysis has been modified somewhat to abide by his wishes. The reason for his anonymity is simple. We don't know what caused the crash and we suspect it will happen again. His customers would not be happy to hear that! Let's take a look at the dump now. ![]() |