freebsd stable - Dec 2008 - Kernel Trap during installworld caused unrecoverable system

Hi folks.

I was unfortunate enough to encounter a kernel trap in single user
mode yesterday when upgrading from 7.1-RC1 to -RC2 using the typical
build/install world.

I'm still not sure what caused the trap, as the system was rebooting
when I saw the screen.  As one would expect, this led to an
irrecoverable system; the system would automatically drop me into
single user mode, as it could only mount the root directory; /bin/sh
and /bin/csh would not work (had to use /restore/csh for the minimal
digging I actually could do).

So, now to the question.  Given I could not mount anything other than
/, would there have been any way for me to gather debugging
information on what caused this failure?  (FWIW, I am certain it is
not a hardware failure.)

Regards,

-- 
Glen Barber

Glen Barber wrote:
> Hi folks.
> 
> I was unfortunate enough to encounter a kernel trap in single user
> mode yesterday when upgrading from 7.1-RC1 to -RC2 using the typical
> build/install world.
> 
> I'm still not sure what caused the trap, as the system was rebooting
> when I saw the screen.  As one would expect, this led to an
> irrecoverable system; the system would automatically drop me into
> single user mode, as it could only mount the root directory; /bin/sh
> and /bin/csh would not work (had to use /restore/csh for the minimal
> digging I actually could do).
> 
> So, now to the question.  Given I could not mount anything other than
> /, would there have been any way for me to gather debugging
> information on what caused this failure?  (FWIW, I am certain it is
> not a hardware failure.)
You can proceed recovering the system using the tools in /rescue, and 
once you have shared libraries working again, run savecore to save the 
crashdump (assuming one was made).

Kris