Memory Allocation Table question ??

[Gilboa Davara]

On Wed, 2008-02-20 at 11:41 -0500, William Case wrote:
> Hi;
> 
> Today Ray Pittigher in his posting "Subject:Is this a Kernel Problem?
> (sh: page allocation failure. order:4, mode:0xd0)" included a table of
> memory allocations:
>         "sh: page allocation failure. order:4, mode:0xd0
>           [<c0144410>] __alloc_pages+0x294/0x2a6
>           [<c014443a>] __get_free_pages+0x18/0x24
>           [<c0146f60>] kmem_getpages+0x1c/0xbb
>           [<c0147aae>] cache_grow+0xab/0x138
>           [<c0147ca0>] cache_alloc_refill+0x165/0x19d
>           [<c0148074>] __kmalloc+0x76/0x88
>           [<c013dff9>] audit_bprm+0x52/0x10a
>           [<c014b953>] kunmap_high+0x63/0x80
>           [<c0163aed>] copy_strings+0x22b/0x235
>           [<c0164b66>] search_binary_handler+0x32/0x22a
>           [<c0164ecb>] do_execve+0x16d/0x1fd
>           [<c01049d5>] sys_execve+0x2b/0x8a
>           [<c02d5ee3>] syscall_call+0x7/0xb
>          Mem-info: etc ..."
> 
> I have been looking for such a table for my memory allocations (just for
> a look-see).  What command or utility can I use to get such a table?
> 
> I would like to actually see (just for curiosity and understanding of
> how memory works) user space and kernel space allocations.  I have
> several manuals that explain the use of memory, so I don't need more of
> that type of reading.  I just want one look at the "real thing" on my
> own computer.
> 
> Can anyone make some suggestions?
> 
> -- 
> Regards Bill
> 

Bill,

This is not a memory allocation table - it's a stack trace.
Kernel stack traces can be generated when a certain kernel
process/function calls the dump_stack() function. (Or when something
dies/OOPs.)

Other then that, a user may trigger such a stack by using the magic
SysRQ [1] key combination.

If you're looking for information about kernel space, I'd start by
googling for "Linux Device Drivers" and "Understanding The Linux
Kernel" (Both can be downloaded in PDF form)

- Gilboa
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key