Hi All, I am writing a very simple file system for understanding purpose. After mounting the file system, I am able to create file and read write to the file. But, as soon as close the file, it is panicking. I did some analysis and found that My kernel has CONFIG_EPOLL enabled struct file { ............. ............. #ifdef CONFIG_EPOLL /* Used by fs/eventpoll.c to link all the hooks to this file */ struct list_head f_ep_links; spinlock_t f_ep_lock; #endif /* #ifdef CONFIG_EPOLL */ ............. ............. }; This is the stack trace of the oops [ 4960.322635] EIP: [<c01f3ffe>] list_del+0xa/0x61 SS:ESP 0068:e9464f20 [ 4960.322511] [<c0179342>] eventpoll_release_file+0x25/0x69 [ 4960.322519] [<c0155b0a>] __fput+0xa3/0x15a [ 4960.322526] [<c0155bd8>] fput+0x17/0x19 [ 4960.322532] [<c0153610>] filp_close+0x54/0x5c [ 4960.322539] [<c015e6e9>] sys_dup2+0xd0/0xfc [ 4960.322547] [<c0103854>] sysenter_past_esp+0x5d/0x99 eventpoll_release_file () functions result in the call to list_del() void list_del(struct list_head *entry) { if (unlikely(entry->prev->next != entry)) { <==== THIS IS THE LINE WHERE OOPS IN HAPPENING printk(KERN_ERR "list_del corruption. prev->next should be %p, " "but was %p\n", entry, entry->prev->next); BUG(); } if (unlikely(entry->next->prev != entry)) { printk(KERN_ERR "list_del corruption. next->prev should be %p, " "but was %p\n", entry, entry->next->prev); BUG(); } __list_del(entry->prev, entry->next); entry->next = LIST_POISON1; entry->prev = LIST_POISON2; } This is the panic string BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000000 So, I think file->f_ep_links is not initialized in my code. Can anyone please let me know the reason Why event polls are used? and What function should I call for initializing the file-> f_ep_links list.? Thanks and Regards, Prasad. ADDING OOPS IF REQUIRED FOR THE REFERENCE Here is the oops msg. [ 4960.322267] Inode Created : 17190 = test<1>BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000000 [ 4960.322328] printing eip: [ 4960.322332] c01f3ffe [ 4960.322335] *pde = 00000000 [ 4960.322341] Oops: 0000 [#2] [ 4960.322344] SMP [ 4960.322350] Modules linked in: fs cpufreq_stats cpufreq_ondemandfreq_table ac evdev thermal processor fan [ 4960.322370] CPU: 1 [ 4960.322372] EIP: 0060:[<c01f3ffe>] Not tainted VLI [ 4960.322376] EFLAGS: 00010282 (2.6.20 #8) [ 4960.322386 ] EIP is at list_del+0xa/0x61 [ 4960.322391] eax: f8868080 ebx: f8868044 ecx: 00000000 edx: e75ef5cc [ 4960.322398] esi: f8868080 edi: 00000000 ebp: e9464f30 esp: e9464f20 [ 4960.322403] ds: 007b es: 007b ss: 0068 [ 4960.322409] Process bash (pid: 6062, ti=e9464000 task=f751b4f0 task.ti=e9464000) [ 4960.322415] Stack: e75ef5cc e9464f30 c0344186 f8868044 e9464f48 c0179342 e75ef5cc 00000008 [ 4960.322430] f599e03c e75ef5cc e9464f70 c0155b0a 00000000 00000000 e826b1cc dfff0988 [ 4960.322445] f599e03c e75ef5cc f7baaca8 00000000 e9464f78 c0155bd8 e9464f90 c0153610 [ 4960.322459] Call Trace: [ 4960.322462] [<c01048a2>] show_trace_log_lvl+0x1a/0x2f [ 4960.322472] [<c0104954>] show_stack_log_lvl+0x9d/0xa5 [ 4960.322481] [<c0104af1>] show_registers+0x195/0x26b [ 4960.322489] [<c0104ce0>] die+0x119/0x21a [ 4960.322496] [<c034713d>] do_page_fault+0x443/0x514 [ 4960.322504] [<c034597c>] error_code+0x7c/0x84 [ 4960.322511] [<c0179342>] eventpoll_release_file+0x25/0x69 [ 4960.322519] [<c0155b0a>] __fput+0xa3/0x15a [ 4960.322526] [<c0155bd8>] fput+0x17/0x19 [ 4960.322532] [<c0153610>] filp_close+0x54/0x5c [ 4960.322539] [<c015e6e9>] sys_dup2+0xd0/0xfc [ 4960.322547] [<c0103854>] sysenter_past_esp+0x5d/0x99 [ 4960.322555] ======================= [ 4960.322558] Code: 00 00 8d 4b 0c 8b 51 04 8d 46 0c e8 72 00 00 00 89 f8 e8 87 fe ff ff 83 c4 10 5b 5e 5f 5d c3 90 90 55 89 e5 53 83 ec 0c 8b 48 04 <8b> 11 39 c2 74 18 89 54 24 08 89 44 24 04 c7 04 24 92 37 3e c0 [ 4960.322635] EIP: [<c01f3ffe>] list_del+0xa/0x61 SS:ESP 0068:e9464f20 - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-fsdevel" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html