Re: out of memory error leads to unbootable VM

[Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>]

Ross Boylan wrote:
> I had a VM running Linux.  While running that SAS installer the kernel
> ran out of memory and killed the installer.  After that, any attempt to
> run a binary inside the VM produced "cannot execute binary file".  The
> log (inside the VM) also showed messages like
> "Buffer I/O error on device hda1, logical block 12243549368".  
> hda1 is 86\% full.
>
> I killed the VM and attempted to restart.  However, the virtual BIOS
> says the disk is unrecognizeable.
>
> lvscan shows, among other things,
>   inactive Original '/dev/turtle/Lenny00' [5.00 GB] inherit
>   ACTIVE            '/dev/turtle/SAS92' [33.00 GB] inherit
>   inactive Snapshot '/dev/turtle/Lenny01SAS' [3.00 GB] inherit
> The active volume has the installation disk; Lenny01SAS was the "disk"
> the VM was using; it is a snapshot of Lenny00.  I have not deliberately
> deactivated either.
>
> lvdisplay does not give any indication of COW overflow, though that may
> be because the volumes are inactive.
>
> Only about 11G of SAS92 are in use.  The SAS installation docs seem to
> indicate 1 to 1.5G for a full installation.  Although it looks as if I
> had enough room, I suppose a snapshot overflow could account for the
> inactive snapshot (and inactive original?).
>
> It probably did run out of virtual RAM, since kvm started
> (inadvertently) with the default RAM.
>
> Any ideas what's going on?
>
>   

Sounds like a guest bug that caused guest disk corruption.  Try with 
more memory (on new volumes to be sure).

-- 
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