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, 3 Jul 2002 16:24:38 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Wed, 3 Jul 2002 16:24:37 -0400 Received: from parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk ([195.92.249.252]:53514 "EHLO www.linux.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Wed, 3 Jul 2002 16:24:36 -0400 Message-ID: <3D235DA9.2B3D0E4@zip.com.au> Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2002 13:25:13 -0700 From: Andrew Morton X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.19-pre8 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Teodor Iacob CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: eth0: memory shortage References: <20020703190931.GA13103@linux.kappa.ro> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Teodor Iacob wrote: > > Hello, > > I keep getting these messages (like about twice a day) in the messages: > eth0: memory shortage > eth0: memory shortage > eth1: memory shortage > eth1: memory shortage > > Any idea what could be the reason behind this? > It means that the ethernet driver's Rx interrupt handler was not able to allocate a new receive buffer - there wasn't enough memory available. The `kswapd' kernel thread is supposed to make memory available for interrupt context but in this case it is obviously not keeping up. The driver recovers from the failed allocation, so things are OK. -