Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sat, 6 Oct 2001 16:00:21 +0200 (CEST) | From | Mikulas Patocka <> | Subject | Re: %u-order allocation failed |
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> > After simple bash fork bombing (about 200 forks) on my UP Celeron/96MB > > I get quite a lot %u-allocations failed, but only when swap is turned > > off. > > > I'm not familiar with LinuxVM.. so... is it normal behaviour ? or (if not) > > what's happening when such messages are printed my kernel ? > > This is perfectly normal behaviour: > > 1) on your system, you have no process limit configured for > yourself so you can start processes until all resources > (memory, file descriptors, ...) are used > > 2) when all processes are used, there really is no way the > kernel can buy you more hardware on ebay and install it > on the fly ... all it can do is start failing allocations > > On production systems, good admins setup per-user limits for > the various resources so no single user is able to run the > system into the ground.
No, it's not normal. It is long-standing bug - I think from 2.2 kernels. You know that without swap and with certain memory allocation strategy (when process in a loop allocates one anonymous page, one file cache page and again...) this bug can be triggered even when there is half memory free.
Buddy allocator is broken - kill it. Or at least do not misuse it for anything except kernel or driver initialization.
Mikulas
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