/dev/kmem and crashing UNIX systems (results of test runs :-) )

[Richard A. Muirden]

Being compleatly bored today I decided to investigate the system
response to stuff cat'd to /dev/kmem as has been discussed in
this group in the past week or so.

Anyway, I'm running an SCO Xenix 2.3.3 system on a '386.

first I did:

# cat /etc/passwd > /dev/kmem

nothing happened (ie: system continued on normally).

ok, so no processes or data were overwritten.

not to be outdone, I decided to *really* swamp virtual memory. And sent
the 700k zipfile for NCSA Telnet 2.3b14 to kmem (I had the file handy!)

# cat tel23bin.zip > /dev/kmem

BANG! system reboot! No Panic's, no nothing! just reboot! :-)

oh well, what fun one can have :-)

luckily there were no other users on at the time, but I was expecting
a crash... ;-)


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Richard Muirden,                         |Humble Computer Science Student &
System Administrator,                    |Star Trek Fan!
Wesley College Melbourne (Prahran Campus)+--My opinions are my own-------------
mail: ram at lionet.wesley.oz.au            |mail: s892024 at minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au
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"Indications of what humans would call a wild party" - Data, ST:TNG "Naked Now" 
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