From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261203AbVEKOqU (ORCPT ); Wed, 11 May 2005 10:46:20 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261233AbVEKOn5 (ORCPT ); Wed, 11 May 2005 10:43:57 -0400 Received: from smtp-ext-02.mx.pitdc1.expedient.net ([206.210.69.142]:36744 "EHLO smtp-ext-02.mx.pitdc1.expedient.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261986AbVEKOlm (ORCPT ); Wed, 11 May 2005 10:41:42 -0400 Message-ID: <42821A77.30301@psc.edu> Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 10:45:11 -0400 From: Paul Nowoczynski User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.5 (Windows/20040207) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: E1000 - page allocation failure - saga continues :( message 1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org I think the problem is related to dma activity by the e1000 and the page cache hoarding all the pages in the system. I've been using min_free_kbytes to get around this - setting it at 131072. Even at that amount I still see the page_alloc errors, raising the limit to 262144 actually lowers the amount of memory the system reserves (to about 90MB)! I've seen this on both 2.6.7 and recently 2.6.11. I'd like to see more control over the page cache. My machine do tons of disk IO and really I find it a waste that 1.8 GB of memory is sitting idle in the page cache, meanwhile the kernel is unable to free it fast enough when the ethernet card needs to dma. If I'm missing something please let me know. paul linuxkernel2.20.sandos@spamgourmet.com wrote: > Nick Piggin - nickpiggin@yahoo.com.au wrote: > >> linuxkernel2.20.sandos@spamgourmet.com wrote: >>> It would be nice with a "cleaner" solution though. >>> >> >> What kernel are you using? >> Are you doing a lot of block IO as well? > > > I am using 2.6.11.8. > > Yes, the server is a fileserver for both the internet (~10Mbit) and > internally (1Gbit e1000). Hardware is pretty old so is pretty heavily > loaded and with 256MB RAM. > OK, well there are some patches in 2.6.12 that should make things slightly better, and then some more patches in -mm (not sure if they'll make it for 2.6.12) that should make things slightly better again. Basically they work towards reducing the memory allocation "priority" for block IO requests, in relation to networking and other atomic allocation requirements. If you can't test the latest -mm, or 2.6.12-rc4, then wait for 2.6.12 and 2.6.13 and check back on the problem. Thanks, Nick -- SUSE Labs, Novell Inc. -