Coda File System

Re: Error message on boot

From: Jan Harkes <jaharkes_at_cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 17:34:49 -0500
On Mon, Mar 20, 2000 at 05:13:06PM -0500, Vic Kass wrote:
> I have just installed coda on two Redhat 6.1 systems. Both
> are running the 2.2.14 kernel.  When both systems boot up,
> the following message is displayed:
> 
>     kernel: coda_psdev_write: downcall, no SB!

That's not a problem, the client is just very eager to make sure the
kernel doesn't have bad state cached and starts chattering before the
mount has completed.

> I've checked numerous sources, including the coldalist archives,
> and found no reference to the above message. The message
> occurs as venus.init is starting. Both the 5.3.5-1 server and
> client were installed. Another message that came up was:
> 
>     Kernel version ioctl failed (Inappropriate ioctl for device)!

That is another non-problem, the initial linux-2.3 kernel needed some
special downcalls for which we needed to be able to detect whether the
kernel supports them. We added an ioctl to check for these features.
Linux-2.2 kernels do not have the ioctl (and don't support the new
downcalls) and this message is displayed.

Recently the address-space changes have allowed us to fall back to the
previously used methods and there is no difference between the kernels
anymore, expect this message to disappear.

Jan
Received on 2000-03-20 17:53:56