From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261157AbUK0IDo (ORCPT ); Sat, 27 Nov 2004 03:03:44 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261156AbUK0IDo (ORCPT ); Sat, 27 Nov 2004 03:03:44 -0500 Received: from mail.charite.de ([160.45.207.131]:61614 "EHLO mail.charite.de") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261158AbUK0IDa (ORCPT ); Sat, 27 Nov 2004 03:03:30 -0500 Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 09:03:29 +0100 From: Ralf Hildebrandt To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Out of memory, but no OOM Killer? (2.6.9-ac11) Message-ID: <20041127080329.GU30987@charite.de> Mail-Followup-To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: <20041126224722.GK30987@charite.de> <41A7C2CA.1030008@yahoo.com.au> <20041127003353.GQ30987@charite.de> <41A7D3EF.3030002@yahoo.com.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-15 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: <41A7D3EF.3030002@yahoo.com.au> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6+20040722i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org * Nick Piggin : > >I see. rsync requested a big chunk of memory, but failed due to the > >fragmentation of free memory? my "sar" output shows lots of free memory and > >lots of unused swap: > > > > Basically, yes. Well not *exactly* rsync - your network drivers. I guess > rsync is showing up in process context most often because that is the > process causing most of the network activity. At that time, yes. > Yep, it looks like fragmentation is indeed the problem here. See you have > a lot of memory that is able to be reclaimed, but the failing allocations > themselves can't reclaim any of it because they are happening from > interrupts. What they should be doing is telling `kswapd` to start freeing > memory for them - however this currently doesn't happen properly for > allocations which are order greater than 0. > > Fortunately that is usually not a big problem, but as you have seen, it > can be. Anyway, expect 2.6.10 to be better (ie. good enough), and 2.6.11 > should have even more complete fixes. Aha. > OK that should be fine. If you should upgrade to a 2.6.10 or later kernel, > put this value back to the default, and report further problems if they > occur. I just set it "for now" -- Ralf Hildebrandt (i.A. des IT-Zentrum) Ralf.Hildebrandt@charite.de Charite - Universitätsmedizin Berlin Tel. +49 (0)30-450 570-155 Gemeinsame Einrichtung von FU- und HU-Berlin Fax. +49 (0)30-450 570-962 IT-Zentrum Standort CBF send no mail to spamtrap@charite.de