Re: Complete lock-up from using pkgsrc/net/darkstat

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

> On NetBSD 8, 9, current, [...] Stop darkstat.  Machine locks.

> [...] in case anyone can imagine how and why a complete system lockup
> could happen as the result of an interface being used in promiscuous
> mode for long periods of time (and not when used that way for short
> periods of time.

Don't forget, it may _not_ be "as the result of an interface being used
in promiscuous mode for long periods of time".  That's merely a
correlate (and possibly not a perfect correlate - your sample size is
small); the causality may be more complicated.  (For example, maybe
it's actually as a result of receiving certain traffic which is on that
segment but which it wouldn't normally receive.  Maybe it's got nothing
to do with network interfaces and instead is related to something else
darkstat does - I know nothing about what darkstat does or doesn't do,
except for your implication that it runs interfaces promiscuous.)

It also might be relevant to note which port you're running.  It must
be capable of having re and wm interfaces, since you name them, but
that still includes a fair bit.

If you want to test just interfaces being promiscuous (and inevitable
side effects thereof, such as receiving traffic it normally might not),
then set up a bridge(4) instance and add the relevant interface to it.
That will (at least in my experience) run the interface promiscuous,
but shouldn't do much else.  Or start tcpdump with an unlikely
expression, such as "ether host 00:11:22:33:44:55", and no -p.

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