From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Wed, 6 Jun 2001 14:56:04 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Wed, 6 Jun 2001 14:55:54 -0400 Received: from ebiederm.dsl.xmission.com ([166.70.28.69]:7724 "EHLO flinx.biederman.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Wed, 6 Jun 2001 14:55:48 -0400 To: Derek Glidden Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Subject: Re: Break 2.4 VM in five easy steps In-Reply-To: <3B1E4CD0.D16F58A8@illusionary.com> <3b204fe5.4014698@mail.mbay.net> <3B1E5316.F4B10172@illusionary.com> <3B1E7ABA.EECCBFE0@illusionary.com> From: ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman) Date: 06 Jun 2001 12:52:07 -0600 In-Reply-To: <3B1E7ABA.EECCBFE0@illusionary.com> Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.5 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Derek Glidden writes: > The problem I reported is not that 2.4 uses huge amounts of swap but > that trying to recover that swap off of disk under 2.4 can leave the > machine in an entirely unresponsive state, while 2.2 handles identical > situations gracefully. > The interesting thing from other reports is that it appears to be kswapd using up CPU resources. Not the swapout code at all. So it appears to be a fundamental VM issue. And calling swapoff is just a good way to trigger it. If you could confirm this by calling swapoff sometime other than at reboot time. That might help. Say by running top on the console. Eric From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Subject: Re: Break 2.4 VM in five easy steps References: <3B1E4CD0.D16F58A8@illusionary.com> <3b204fe5.4014698@mail.mbay.net> <3B1E5316.F4B10172@illusionary.com> <3B1E7ABA.EECCBFE0@illusionary.com> From: ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman) Date: 06 Jun 2001 12:52:07 -0600 In-Reply-To: <3B1E7ABA.EECCBFE0@illusionary.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org Return-Path: To: Derek Glidden Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org List-ID: Derek Glidden writes: > The problem I reported is not that 2.4 uses huge amounts of swap but > that trying to recover that swap off of disk under 2.4 can leave the > machine in an entirely unresponsive state, while 2.2 handles identical > situations gracefully. > The interesting thing from other reports is that it appears to be kswapd using up CPU resources. Not the swapout code at all. So it appears to be a fundamental VM issue. And calling swapoff is just a good way to trigger it. If you could confirm this by calling swapoff sometime other than at reboot time. That might help. Say by running top on the console. Eric -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@kvack.org. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/