why does loop-aes over USB2.0 make 2.4.18 unstable? (block-major-2)

[dave-mlist@bfnet.com]

Since I recently upgraded to an SMP system, I re-installed RH8.0, and
followed the directions for installing loop-aes.  I have a usb drive
which is one big loop-aes partition, so I copied over my previous
system's /etc/fstab entry, and I plugged in my usb drive.  Within 1
minute, my system froze.

I tried kernels 2.4.19 and 2.4.20 with identical results.  It seems
that whenever I plug in the usb drive, I see "modprobe: can't locate
block-major-2".  I'm not sure if this is a result of loop-aes, but I
thought someone in this list might have seen this before.

Since block-major-2 is the floppy device, I'm quite confused.  I
expect usb-storage to make the drive look like a scsi device, not a
floppy.

If I leave the usb drive plugged in while I boot, I see the
block-major-2 errors as soon as the system tries to mount the
filesystems (even though /mnt/crypt is not mounted by default).

If I plug in the usb drive after booting, I see the following in my
/var/log/messages file:

Jan  4 21:53:22 home kernel: loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
Jan  4 21:53:53 home kernel: Attached scsi generic sg0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 1, lun 0,  type 6
Jan  4 21:53:53 home modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module char-major-97
Jan  4 21:53:53 home last message repeated 3 times
Jan  4 21:59:48 home kernel: hub.c: new USB device 02:07.2-4, assigned address 2
Jan  4 21:59:48 home kernel: usb.c: USB device 2 (vend/prod 0xc0b/0xb001) is not claimed by any active driver.
Jan  4 21:59:51 home /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Setup usb-storage for USB product c0b/b001/1110
Jan  4 21:59:51 home kernel: Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
Jan  4 21:59:51 home kernel: usb.c: registered new driver usb-storage
Jan  4 21:59:51 home kernel: scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Jan  4 21:59:54 home kernel:   Vendor: HITACHI_  Model: DK23DA-30         Rev: 00J1
Jan  4 21:59:54 home kernel:   Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Jan  4 21:59:54 home kernel: Attached scsi disk sda at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Jan  4 21:59:54 home kernel: SCSI device sda: 58605120 512-byte hdwr sectors (30006 MB)
Jan  4 21:59:54 home kernel:  sda: sda1
Jan  4 21:59:54 home kernel: USB Mass Storage support registered.
Jan  4 21:59:54 home modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module block-major-2
Jan  4 21:59:54 home last message repeated 3 times
Jan  4 22:00:14 home modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module char-major-97
Jan  4 22:00:14 home last message repeated 3 times

When I run "mount /mnt/crypt", mount succeeds, but I only have a
minute or so before the whole system locks up.  I've done this about
15 times in the last 48 hours.

Any suggestions?

Dave
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Linux-crypto:  cryptography in and on the Linux system
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