Re: 2.6.8.1 mempool subsystem sickness

From: Nick Piggin
Date: Wed Sep 15 2004 - 20:48:03 EST


Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
Nick Piggin wrote:

OK, this is against 2.6.9-rc2. Let me know how you go. Thanks




Nick,

The problem is corrected with this patch. I am running with 3GB of kernel memory
and 1GB user space with the userspace splitting patch with very heavy swapping
and user space app activity and no failed allocations. This patch should be rolled
into 2.6.9-rc2 since it fixes the problem. With standard 3GB User/1GB kernel
address space, it also fixes the problems with X server running out of memory
and the apps crashing.


Hi Jeff,
Thanks, that is very cool. The memory problems you're seeing aren't
actually a regression (it's always been like that), and I still haven't
got hold of some gigabit networking hardware to test it thoroughly, so
as such so it may be difficult to get this into 2.6.9. Hopefully soon
though.

I can provide you (or anyone) with up to date patches on request though,
so just let me know.

Jeff

Here's the stats from the test of the patch against 2.6.8-rc2 with the patch applied



Scanning stats look good at a quick glance. kswapd doesn't seem to be
going crazy.

However,
size-65536 32834 32834 65536 1 16

This slab entry is taking up about 2GB of unreclaimable memory (order-4,
no less). This must be a leak... does the number continue to rise as
your system runs?
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