Re: "0-order allocation failed"

[Seth Mos <knuffie@xs4all.nl>]

At 13:40 19-8-2001 -0400, tls@reefedge.com wrote:

>We're building a server for a CVS repository consisting of several tens
>of thousands of files; about 1.5GB of data total.  It's a two-processor
>Pentium-III machine with a Mylex RAID controller and 4GB of RAM.
>
>We installed from the RH7.1/XFS 1.0.1 media, built a 2.4.5 kernel with
>the XFS 1.0.1 patches, copied the repository into place and ran a small
>script that copied the repository four times, copied the resulting directory,
>then removed both copies.
>
>I let it run overnight -- came in this morning to find that the first time
>I ran any command that generated any disk I/O on the box, I got dozens of
>"0 order alloc failed" messages on the console and then a hard hang.

The error message is a general kernel error message which seems to be a 
highmem problem.

>I see mention of this bug in a list message from April, but nothing since
>then.  Has it been fixed, or even analyzed?  If it's been fixed, is there a
>simple patch against 1.0.1 or will I need to run the latest from CVS?

I guess that using a kernel later then 2.4.5 may help but this is not 
directly a XFS related error but XFS will help exposing this message 
because it pushes the VM harder.

I don't know if the highmem stuff is significantly better in 2.4.9.
That is the current CVS tree version which is probably your best bet for 
testing. A 2.4.8 patch is also available on the FTP site.

Cheers



>Thor

--
Seth
Every program has two purposes one for which
it was written and another for which it wasn't
I use the last kind.