Troubleshooting server crashes

[Ilya Palagin]

Fraser Campbell wrote:
...
> 
> Still there are so many possible Linux error messages, some common and not 
> resulting in a crash, some more serious ... sometimes it's hard to find 
> definitive answers.  For example:
> 
>     hda: timeout waiting for DMA
> 
> Wouldn't it be nice to have a knowledgebase somewhere telling you that this 
> error is usually nothing to worry about unless accompanied by other errors, 
> this error is a sign that you're using unsupported DMA modes, this error 
> means that your that your motherboard needs to be replaced, ???
Well, I would love to have a kb like this!  The problem is that the 
message you mentioned can be caused by too many reasons (just search 
google): from bad IDE cable and faulty hard drive to wrong DMA options 
in kernel config. In the most cases the real reason for a warning or an 
error depends on the global configuration, which is always unique. Once 
upon a time I was interested to find a reason for a "lost interrupt" 
message appearing on the console after I started CD burning. I didn't 
suspect that this subject is so good for researching  - there are a lot 
if issues with hardware and kernel. Finally I followed the suggestion: 
"you can safely ignore this message". :-)

> 
> I just tried searching Redhat's knowledgebase for "timeout waiting for DMA" 
> and the results are a joke. A total of 7 hits, first hit was "nsupdate not 
> working", the second hit was "sendmail hangs at boot" dma matched because of 
> senDMAil.
> 
google is a much better knowledgebase :-)

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