page allocation failure

From: Oliver Kiddle (okiddle_at_yahoo.co.uk)
Date: 01/19/04

  • Next message: Rusty Russell: "Re: 2.6.1-mm4" 
    To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Date:	Mon, 19 Jan 2004 12:36:02 +0100

    There seems to be a problem with 2.6.1 on my machine. It will be fine
    for a matter of a few days and then this error will appear on the
    console. The message then appears repeatedly and continuously. The
    first I know is that my remote login shell ceases to respond. About the
    only thing I can do is switch between virtual consoles (until I hit the
    reset button).

    /var/log/messages shows:
    kernel: cat: page allocation failure. order:0, mode:0x20

    Then the same for lots of other processes (pdflush, syslogd, klogd,
    kswapd0, nfsd to name a few). I expect that after a point it is unable
    to even log stuff so syslog is quiet after a while.

    It has happened three times now and on all occasions, I was untarring a
    huge file on an XFS partition. I assume the problem is something to do
    with VM. The machine has 1GB of RAM which should be plenty. For the
    most part it is just serving NFS and NIS (to no more than about 10
    clients).

    The hardware is a Dell PowerEdge 600SC. It's a new machine that never
    ran 2.4 before. I can supply any other information that might help in
    diagnosing the problem. I don't subscribe so please CC me in any reply
    (but I'll keep an eye on the archives).

    If anyone can suggest any /proc variables I might change to reduce the
    risk of it doing this again, I would appreciate it. I tried increasing
    /proc/sys/vm/min_free_kbytes after the first time this happened. Not
    that I understand what that does: I searched the archives and it was
    mentioned in a vaguely relevant looking post.

    Cheers

    Oliver Kiddle
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  • Next message: Rusty Russell: "Re: 2.6.1-mm4"