Re: 7.0 CURRENT kernel's ath driver causes page fault, kernel panic (debugging kernel)

On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 9:00 PM, Edward Ruggeri <smallhand_at_crawblog.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am getting a kernel panic (page fault) caused by the FreeBSD
> kernel's ath driver shortly after I begin using the internet.  I use
> FreeBSD 7.0 CURRENT.  I used cvs a few days ago to update the source
> tree (7/10/08) and rebuilt the world as well as the kernel (just got a
> brand new computer).  There is very little software installed (ports
> only, also built 7/10/08), and no data.  But let me describe the
> configuration and problem.
>
> I have recently purchased a Lenovo ThinkPad, with a ThinkPad 11a/b/g
> Wi-Fi wireless LAN Mini-PCIe card (Lenovo part #41W1685).  My Lenovo
> representative claims this uses a Atheros Ar5006ex chipset (she's not
> an expert, though), but FreeBSD's dmesg detects an Atheros 5212
> chipset.  The Linux oriented thinkwiki.org claims this card may use
> either chipset.  I don't know who to trust; maybe someone knows the
> answer, but Google hasn't seemed to clear things up.  In particular,
> from dmesg:

Some notes:

1. *blinks*... I hope you mean 8-CURRENT, not 7-CURRENT. 7 hasn't been
CURRENT for some months now (~6 months IIRC).
2. pciconf -lv might help with the PCI ID info. Then someone might be
able to tie your card back to the appropriate chipset.
3. KDB, DDB, WITNESS and INVARIANTS support compiled into the kernel
would be extremely helpful, if not required to debug your issue.

As for the actual debug process, there's a spot in the dev handbook
about it (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/developers-handbook/kerneldebug.html),
but when I tried debugging my issue with NTFS and SMB I didn't really
find it helpful to be honest...

You may also have to compile without SMP and with the 4BSD scheduler
just to see whether or not it's an issue reproducible with the ULE
scheduler, the driver, or something else...

Hopefully this gets you started on the right path...
-Garrett