This is an update on the crash associated with ns_rand. I am using an old version of glibc: 2.2.4, which apparently doesn't have the sacksize issue mentioned by Dan. Carl Garland suggested that I move the initial call to ns_rand to my init.tcl file so that there would be less of a noticeable delay for the first call. Also, the C function Ns_GetSeed uses some interesting thread/sema code, which might actually be the cause of the problem.
Since this is a new issue, which might not be clear to future readers of this thread, it would be great if the new forums package would allow moving the stacksize discussion to a separate new thread.
Until ns_rand is fixed, OpenACS installations should probably call it in their init.tcl file:
ns_log Notice "init.tcl: about to initialize ns_rand"
set x [ns_rand 1000000]
ns_log Notice "init.tcl: ns_rand initialized x=$x"
