Kernel Panic from pppd when device is disconnected

[James Mckenzie]

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org>
Sent: Feb 25, 2005 1:02 AM
To: For users of Fedora Core releases <fedora-list at redhat.com>
Subject: Re: Kernel Panic from pppd when device is disconnected

On Thu, 2005-02-24 at 19:11 -0700, James McKenzie wrote:
> James Mckenzie wrote:
> > Here is a strange problem and I think it appeared with 2.6.11-rc3, but may happen with the 2.6.10 series of kernels too.
> > 
> > If I have pppd running and I disconnect the device (I am using a USB connection), the kernel panics and I cannot reconnect the device at the same /dev mount point nor can I kill pppd.  If I kill the pppd connection before removing the device, all is happy.  
> > 
> > How can I kill off pppd (I've tried SIGHUP, TERM and KILL) after this happens.  I don't like rebooting to get back the ability to communicate.
> > 
> > 
> I figured out what was happening and it had to do with a missing file in 
> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts.  I had to copy one of the configuration 
> files from another and then if_down.ppp would work.
> I still have the question on how I can kill off the hung process.

!Why do you disconnect the device whilst you are using it in the first
!place? I mean, you wouldn't disconnect a USB hard drive whilst you were
!writing to it, would you?

I sometimes forget to drop pppd before using the device elsewhere.  I was experiencing kernel panics when I resumed the system from hibernation, too.  BTW, this started with 2.6.11-rc3.  I'm continuing to look at this issue to see if I can resolve it.


-- 
James McKenzie
Running Fedora Core 3 on a Thinkpad A22p with Software Suspend 2 and
ibm-acpi .1.