__alloc_pages: 0-order allocation failed (gfp=0x1d2/0)

[Andre Majorel <amajorel@xxxxxxxxx>]

I have a PC running 2.4.26 and a 120GB XFS filesystem. When
writing to the filesystem, I sometimes get

  __alloc_pages: 0-order allocation failed (gfp=0x1d2/0)

# cat /proc/meminfo 
        total:    used:    free:  shared: buffers:  cached:
Mem:  63201280 61521920  1679360        0   126976 16670720
Swap: 148045824  7221248 140824576
MemTotal:        61720 kB
MemFree:          1640 kB
MemShared:           0 kB
Buffers:           124 kB
Cached:          15576 kB
SwapCached:        704 kB
Active:           1040 kB
Inactive:        16220 kB
HighTotal:           0 kB
HighFree:            0 kB
LowTotal:        61720 kB
LowFree:          1640 kB
SwapTotal:      144576 kB
SwapFree:       137524 kB

The kernel message does not seem to be related to a particular
application; it happens with both tar over SSH and rsync. And, in
the case of tar over SSH, the virtual size of both processes is
quite reasonable (< 1MB).

Note that this might not be an XFS issue; I've seen similar
reports with other filesystems.

-- 
André Majorel <amajorel@xxxxxxxxx>
http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/