FC3 and the oom-killer

[fredex]

On Wed, Feb 16, 2005 at 07:56:03PM -0800, Andy Barclay wrote:
> I am running 2.6.10-1.760_FC3 on my home machine.
> 
> The machine has 2 GB of RAM and 4 GB of swap.
> 
> I need to run windows XP in a vmware session (for accessing a customer's 
> network with a windows-only vpn).
> 
> I have allocated 1596 MB for my XP virtual machine. When I launch the 
> guest OS,
> after a short while, it gets killed.

Seems like a huge allocation of memory for the VMWare guest OS. I'm running
Win2k in vmware at work and have allocated it 256 megs and it runs fine.
Depending on what you are doing you may, of course, need more, but
a gig and a half seems like serious overkill! Also, there is a setting
in vmware to allow the host to swap out part of, or all (you can choose
either) of a virtual machine's RAM. You may wish to investigate setting
one of those choices.

> 
> Looking in /var/log/messages, I find that this is because of the 
> oom-killer. This just sucks. I don't ever want the kernel to randomly 
> kill my processes. After researching this, I found that
> if I echo "2" >/proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory, it is supposed to disable 
> the oom-killer.
> 
> I've done this, and I *thought* this was working (I worked for a day 
> without it kicking in), but now, I'm sure the value is "2", but 
> oom-killer is still killing my vm. I've seen notes on the net that say 
> the "2" is not supported yet.
> 
> Does anyone know what I can do to stop this thing.....
> 
> Here is what I see in my /var/log/messages file:
> --------------------
> Feb 16 14:41:06 pigeon kernel: oom-killer: gfp_mask=0xd0
> Feb 16 14:41:06 pigeon kernel: Mem-info:
> Feb 16 14:41:06 pigeon kernel: DMA per-cpu:
> Feb 16 14:41:06 pigeon kernel: cpu 0 hot: low 2, high 6, batch 1
> Feb 16 14:41:06 pigeon kernel: cpu 0 cold: low 0, high 2, batch 1
> Feb 16 14:41:06 pigeon kernel: Normal per-cpu:
> Feb 16 14:41:06 pigeon kernel: cpu 0 hot: low 32, high 96, batch 16
> Feb 16 14:41:06 pigeon kernel: cpu 0 cold: low 0, high 32, batch 16
> Feb 16 14:41:06 pigeon kernel: HighMem per-cpu:
> Feb 16 14:41:06 pigeon kernel: cpu 0 hot: low 32, high 96, batch 16
> Feb 16 14:41:06 pigeon kernel: cpu 0 cold: low 0, high 32, batch 16
> Feb 16 14:41:06 pigeon kernel:
> Feb 16 14:41:06 pigeon kernel: Free pages: 5372kB (832kB HighMem)
> Feb 16 14:41:08 pigeon kernel: Active:235963 inactive:265434 dirty:23 
> writeback:1 unstable:0 free:1343 slab:5777 mapped:134793 pagetables:1867
> Feb 16 14:41:09 pigeon kernel: DMA free:68kB min:68kB low:84kB 
> high:100kB active:12kB inactive:11836kB present:16384kB pages_scanned:83 
> all_unreclaimable? no
> Feb 16 14:41:10 pigeon kernel: protections[]: 0 0 0
> Feb 16 14:41:10 pigeon kernel: Normal free:4472kB min:3756kB low:4692kB 
> high:5632kB active:680kB inactive:838588kB present:901120kB 
> pages_scanned:45 all_unreclaimable? no
> Feb 16 14:41:10 pigeon kernel: protections[]: 0 0 0
> Feb 16 14:41:10 pigeon kernel: HighMem free:832kB min:512kB low:640kB 
> high:768kB active:943160kB inactive:211312kB present:1179584kB 
> pages_scanned:64 all_unreclaimable? no
> Feb 16 14:41:10 pigeon kernel: protections[]: 0 0 0
> Feb 16 14:41:10 pigeon kernel: DMA: 1*4kB 0*8kB 0*16kB 0*32kB 1*64kB 
> 0*128kB 0*256kB 0*512kB 0*1024kB 0*2048kB 0*4096kB = 68kB
> Feb 16 14:41:10 pigeon kernel: Normal: 174*4kB 2*8kB 1*16kB 1*32kB 
> 2*64kB 0*128kB 0*256kB 1*512kB 1*1024kB 1*2048kB 0*4096kB = 4472kB
> Feb 16 14:41:10 pigeon kernel: HighMem: 12*4kB 28*8kB 1*16kB 1*32kB 
> 0*64kB 0*128kB 0*256kB 1*512kB 0*1024kB 0*2048kB 0*4096kB = 832kB
> Feb 16 14:41:10 pigeon kernel: Swap cache: add 59013, delete 53995, find 
> 14789/18211, race 0+0
> Feb 16 14:41:10 pigeon kernel: Free swap: 3852568kB
> Feb 16 14:41:10 pigeon kernel: 524272 pages of RAM
> Feb 16 14:41:10 pigeon kernel: 294896 pages of HIGHMEM
> Feb 16 14:41:10 pigeon kernel: 5388 reserved pages
> Feb 16 14:41:10 pigeon kernel: 580493 pages shared
> Feb 16 14:41:10 pigeon kernel: 5018 pages swap cached
> Feb 16 14:41:10 pigeon kernel: Out of Memory: Killed process 7402 
> (vmware-vmx).
> ---------------------
> 
> 
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-- 
---- Fred Smith -- fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us -----------------------------
                    The Lord detests the way of the wicked 
                  but he loves those who pursue righteousness.
----------------------------- Proverbs 15:9 (niv) -----------------------------
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