Re: oom-killer: gfp_mask=0xd1 with 2.6.12 on EM64T

[Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>]

J M Cerqueira Esteves <jmce@artenumerica.com> wrote:
>
> On a dual EM64T Xeon with 4GB of RAM, I am getting apparently "innocent"
>  processes killed by oom-killer with gfp_mask=0xd1 (with all or almost
>  all swap space still available).
> 

That's quite an old kernel.  If this is the notorious bio-uses-GFP_DMA bug
then I'd have expected this kernel to be useless from day one.  Did you
install it recently?

>  I haven't tried 2.6.15 kernels yet, but according to recent reports in
>  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=175173
>  even those may still have oom-killer problems (like this?).

Yes, I expect it's the same still-unfixed bug.

If you're feeling keen you could add this patch which would confirm it:

--- devel/mm/oom_kill.c~a	2006-03-02 01:16:17.000000000 -0800
+++ devel-akpm/mm/oom_kill.c	2006-03-02 01:16:32.000000000 -0800
@@ -258,6 +258,8 @@ void out_of_memory(unsigned int __nocast
 	struct mm_struct *mm = NULL;
 	task_t * p;
 
+	dump_stack();
+
 	read_lock(&tasklist_lock);
 retry:
 	p = select_bad_process();
_


And if it's that bug then I'm afraid you'll have to sit tight until 2.6.16.
We shouldn't release 2.6.16 until this thing is fixed.