# save-entropy: segmentation fault



## cbrace (Oct 13, 2010)

Hi all,

Today I upgraded my FreeBSD server from v8 to v8.1 stable.

After doing so, I started getting error messages from cron every half hour or so that executing *save-entropy* results in a segmentation fault.

I've temporarily disabled the cron job. Any thoughts on what to do next? Leave as is... or?

Thanks,

-Colin


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## DutchDaemon (Oct 13, 2010)

Describe your upgrade process. Source upgrade, or freebsd-update? Ran mergemaster?


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## cbrace (Oct 14, 2010)

I updated the source with cvsup; recompiled everything, booted single user, installed kernel, ran mergemaster.


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## DutchDaemon (Oct 14, 2010)

Then all I can think of is a 'bad apple' in the sources just when you checked them out and built -STABLE from them. It can happen. because it's a moving target. Try a new source upgrade and build again. If the problem still persists, we'll have to come up with a different idea.


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## cbrace (Oct 14, 2010)

DD: In the course of testing something else, I rebooted my system, and later tried running *save-entropy* in terminal. No segementation fault, so I reenabled the cron job, and it seems to work now. Guess it was just something temporary.

While I have your attention, may I ask you about mergemaster?

According to the handbook, after installing the kernel, these are the steps:


```
# mergemaster -p
# cd /usr/src
# make installworld
# mergemaster
# reboot
```
According to the mergemaster man page, *-p* is supposed to restrict its operation to: "Pre-buildworld mode. Compares only files known to be essential to the success of {build|install}world"

However, I had the distinct impression that both times I ran mergemaster, with and without -p, it cycled through the entire /etc tree, and I found it exceedingly monotonous to have look at each file twice, since I customarily only modify a small number of files in under /etc and /usr/local/etc. Many of the changes were just the familiar header line, ie:  


```
# $FreeBSD: src/etc/syslog.conf,v 1.30.2.1 2009/08/03 08:13:06 kensmith Exp $
```

I almost think it might be easier to make the changes manually, w/o mergemaster. Your thoughts?


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## SirDice (Oct 14, 2010)

Read the mergemaster(8) man page regarding files that only have the VCS line changed.


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## cbrace (Oct 14, 2010)

```
-F         If the files differ only by VCS Id ($FreeBSD) install the new
                 file.
```
Thanks for the tip. Will _definitely_ use this next time.


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## DutchDaemon (Oct 15, 2010)

See also 'the 11 steps' in /usr/src/Makefile which essentially suggests some flags to cut down on time. It would be preferable if the handbook used these same steps.


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