Re: unexpected data beyond EOF and character encoding

Sorry, forgot about the hardware.
Here's the uname -a:
Linux wdlbc22r06 2.6.5-7.244-bigsmp #1 SMP Mon Dec 12 18:32:25 UTC 2005
i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

From hwinfo --cpu
01: None 00.0: 10103 CPU
[Created at cpu.290]
Unique ID: rdCR.j8NaKXDZtZ6
Hardware Class: cpu
Arch: Intel
Vendor: "GenuineIntel"
Model: 15.4.3 "Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 3.60GHz"
Features:
fpu,vme,de,pse,tsc,msr,pae,mce,cx8,apic,sep,mtrr,pge,mca,cmov,pat,pse36,clflush,dts,acpi,mmx,fxsr,sse,sse2,ss,ht,tm,pbe,lm,pni,monitor,ds_cpl,tm2,est,cid
Clock: 3600 MHz
Cache: 2048 kb
Units/Processor: 2
Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

From hwinfo --memory
01: None 00.0: 10102 Main Memory
[Created at memory.59]
Unique ID: rdCR.CxwsZFjVASF
Hardware Class: memory
Model: "Main Memory"
Memory Range: 0x00000000-0xfff5ba3f (rw)
Memory Size: 4 GB
Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

We're running on 32-bit mode for compatibility with some libraries.
How can I determine whether this is due to a buggy kernel?

Tom Lane wrote:
> Jaime Silvela <JSilvela(at)bear(dot)com> writes:
>
>> The kernel is Linux 2.6.5
>>
>
> 2.6.5.what (give us full uname -a output please)? On what hardware?
> If memory serves, we had some reason to think that it only occurred on
> specific 64-bit multi-CPU platforms, so I'm not just asking idly.
> The error check was put in as a consequence of this thread:
> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-admin/2006-09/msg00250.php
>
>
>> So I take it that this happens on the restore part, not the dump part then?
>>
>
> It's definitely a write failure not a read failure. Per the code comments:
>
> * We get here only in the corner case where we are trying to extend
> * the relation but we found a pre-existing buffer marked BM_VALID.
> * This can happen because mdread doesn't complain about reads beyond
> * EOF --- which is arguably bogus, but changing it seems tricky ---
> * and so a previous attempt to read a block just beyond EOF could
> * have left a "valid" zero-filled buffer. Unfortunately, we have
> * also seen this case occurring because of buggy Linux kernels that
> * sometimes return an lseek(SEEK_END) result that doesn't account for
> * a recent write. In that situation, the pre-existing buffer would
> * contain valid data that we don't want to overwrite. Since the
> * legitimate cases should always have left a zero-filled buffer,
> * complain if not PageIsNew.
>
> regards, tom lane
>
>

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