[nas] Some problems with SunRay

[Andy Stewart - Volume Server Products Group]

David Morano wrote:
> 
> Andy Stewart (Volume Server Products Group - Sun Microsystems) wrote :
> 
> > This event seems to hang the nasd server, requiring it to be killed and
> > restarted.  The nasd server sits there thus:
> >
> >       ioctl(6, AUDIO_DRAIN, 0x00000000) (sleeping...)
> 
> If the NASD server is hung here then it is reasonable that the
> client ('auplay') is also hung, waiting for a response from the
> server.
> 
> :-) :-)  I am not a NASD guy so I really do not know anything but if
> the server is just sitting there in that 'ioctl()' idle (without
> looping around it continuously for example), then it looks like there
> is a bug in the audio driver on your Sun Ray server box running
> Solaris 8 !  A drain should not last forever !
> 
> In general, I have also noticed problems running NASD on Solaris 8 but
> I have not had any time to investigate it.  I no longer can run NASD on
> Solaris 8 as a result.  I run Solaris 8 with the audio multiplexing
> turned on and that *may* be tricking NASD to hang in some way !!!  I
> have had some problems with NASD on all recent Solarii for years now.
> What is really needed is for some Sun guys to volunteer to clean up
> both Solaris (as needed) and NASD so that it runs without problems !
> 
> Do you have all of the latest patches for Solaris 8 installed ?
> 
> Dave Morano
> morano at computer.org

Hi Dave,

I don't know if all of the Solaris 8 patches are installed.  I'm not a
Solaris sysadmin, and around here, mere ASIC engineers aren't allowed to
touch such things.  :-)  

I wish I had the expertise to dive into this and help to fix it, but
alas, I don't.  Toward that end, I try to objectively report the
problem, in the hope that somebody with the expertise can propose a fix
(which I'll happily test!).

Andy

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