Re: Kernel 2.6.8.1: swap storm of death - nr_requests > 1024 on swap partition

Andrew Morton
2004-08-29T20:18:24Z

Jens Axboe <axboe@suse.de> wrote:
>
> > > It only happens with the CFQ elevator, and this backout patch makes it go
> > > away.
> >
> > It's not bizarre, if you backout that fix (it is a fix!), ->nr_requests
> > isn't initialized when cfq gets there. So it'll throttle incorrectly in
> > may_queue, not a good idea.
>
> Oh, and I think the main issue is the vm. It should cope correctly no
> matter how much pending memory can be in progress on the queue, else it
> should not write out so much. CFQ is just exposing this bug because it
> defaults to bigger nr_requests.

That was my point.