Messages in this thread |  | | | From | Roger Larsson <> | | Subject | Re: Memory Problem in 2.4.10-pre2 / __alloc_pages failed | | Date | Thu, 30 Aug 2001 18:49:08 +0200 |
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On Thursdayen den 30 August 2001 01:36, Daniel Phillips wrote: > On August 29, 2001 02:07 pm, Stephan von Krawczynski wrote: > > I managed it again. As with previous 2.4-releases I managed to let > > __alloc_pages fail quite easily with pretty standard test bed: > > > > Hardware: 2 x P-III 1GHz, 1 GB RAM, 29160 U160 SCSI, 36GB HD > > Kernel: 2.4.10-pre2 with trace output in mm/page_alloc.c (thanks Roger) > > > > Test: > > exported reiserfs filesystem, simply copying files on it from a 2.2.19 > > nfs client (files are big 10-20 MB each). at the same time I read a CD to > > HD via xcdroast and run setiathome on nice-level 19. > > > > Everything runs acceptable, but CPU-Load is high (6-8). Simply "cat > > /proc/meminfo" takes half a minute sometimes during test. Mouse cannot be > > moved smoothly during the whole test. When xcdroast is finished with > > reading CD (at about 1 MB/sec speed, not very fast indeed) the following > > shows up: > > > > Aug 29 13:43:34 admin kernel: __alloc_pages: 1-order allocation failed > > (gfp=0x20/0). Aug 29 13:43:34 admin kernel: pid=1207; > > __alloc_pages(gfp=0x20, order=1, ...) Aug 29 13:43:34 admin kernel: Call > > Trace: [_alloc_pages+22/24] [__get_free_pages+10/24] [<fdcec845>] > > [<fdcec913>] [<fdceb7d7>] Aug 29 13:43:34 admin kernel: [<fdcec0f5>] > > [<fdcea589>] [ip_local_deliver_finish+0/368] [nf_hook_slow+272/404] > > [ip_rcv_finish+0/480] [ip_local_deliver+436/444] Aug 29 13:43:34 admin > > kernel: [ip_local_deliver_finish+0/368] [ip_rcv_finish+0/480] > > [ip_rcv_finish+413/480] [ip_rcv_finish+0/480] [nf_hook_slow+272/404] > > [ip_rcv+870/944] Aug 29 13:43:34 admin kernel: [ip_rcv_finish+0/480] > > [net_rx_action+362/628] [do_softirq+111/204] [do_IRQ+219/236] > > [ret_from_intr+0/7] [sys_ioctl+443/532] Aug 29 13:43:34 admin kernel: > > [system_call+51/56] > > OK, I see what the problem is. Regular memory users are consuming memory > right down to the emergency reserve limit, beyond which only PF_MEMALLOC > users can go. Unfortunately, since atomic memory allocators can't wait, > they tend to fail with high frequency in this state. Duh. > > First, there's an effective way to make these particular atomic failures > go away almost entirely. The atomic memory user (in this case a network > interrupt handler) keeps a list of pages for its private use, starting with > an empty list. Each time it needs a page it gets it from its private list, > but if that list is empty it gets it from alloc_pages, and when done with > it, returns it to its private list. The alloc_pages call can still fail of > course, but now it will only fail a few times as it expands its list up to > the size required for normal traffic. The effect on throughput should be > roughly nothing.
Looking at the code - sg already has some private memory... but it does not use it in this case. (see sg_low_malloc)
But it tries to alloc 8 (2**3) pages atomically. That it quite a bit of memory (32k!) that is twice more memory than the first computer I used. But in this case we do not see errors with lower orders, try 4*4096
IN FILE sg.h
#define SG_SCATTER_SZ (8 * 4096) /* PAGE_SIZE not available to user */ /* Largest size (in bytes) a single scatter-gather list element can have. The value must be a power of 2 and <= (PAGE_SIZE * 32) [131072 bytes on i386]. The minimum value is PAGE_SIZE. If scatter-gather not supported by adapter then this value is the largest data block that can be read/written by a single scsi command. The user can find the value of PAGE_SIZE by calling getpagesize() defined in unistd.h . */
/RogerL
-- Roger Larsson Skellefteå Sweden - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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