On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 05:35, Martin Michlmayr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Actually, this is what the installer does, are or least is supposed to > do. Kevin Price ran into this problem too recently and I'm not sure > how to interpret his finding. Maybe someone more familiar with > partman (or the kernel?) can comment. > > Here is what Kevin found: > > | >> I think it should have formatted and activated swap first, and then > | >> afterwards start formatting the ext3 partitions. That would avoid the > error. > | > > | > That's what the installer does. It partitions the disk, formats and > | > activates swap and then formats the other partitions. > | > | That surprises me. On a closer look into the log, you're right. > | > | From a user's POV, the first mkfs-ext3 attempt failed, but just starting > | it again worked out ok. > | > | Now from looking into the log, it looks strange: It adds swap, then > | attempts to format ext3, then comes OOM and kills mkfs.ext3. Then comes > | the interesting part: It seems to add swap again. That time mkfs.ext3 > | runs OK. So maybe the first time adding swap, the swap gets disbled > | immediately after, triggering OOM? > | > | See the attached log excerpt. I don't see this problem on the NSLU2 with the default partitioning scheme. Sep 14 20:16:00 kernel: [42949829.950000] Adding 248968k swap on /dev/sda5. Priority:-1 extents:1 across:248968k Sep 14 20:16:04 partman: mke2fs 1.41.1 (01-Sep-2008) Sep 14 20:18:41 kernel: [42949991.560000] kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds Sep 14 20:18:41 kernel: [42949991.560000] EXT3 FS on sda2, internal journal Sep 14 20:18:41 kernel: [42949991.560000] EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Kevin, what partitioning scheme were you trying to implement? What is also interesting in Kevin's logs is that the kernel log messages indicate that swap was present and available. Aug 20 01:04:50 kernel: [42950317.650000] mkfs.ext3 invoked oom-killer: gfp_mask=0x1200d2, order=0, oomkilladj=0 ... Aug 20 01:04:50 kernel: [42950317.660000] Free swap = 206988kB Aug 20 01:04:50 kernel: [42950317.660000] Total swap = 248968kB Aug 20 01:04:50 kernel: [42950317.660000] 8192 pages of RAM Aug 20 01:04:50 kernel: [42950317.660000] 381 free pages Aug 20 01:04:50 kernel: [42950317.660000] 817 reserved pages Aug 20 01:04:50 kernel: [42950317.660000] 675 slab pages Aug 20 01:04:50 kernel: [42950317.660000] 0 pages shared Aug 20 01:04:50 kernel: [42950317.660000] 2354 pages swap cached Aug 20 01:04:50 kernel: [42950317.660000] Out of memory: kill process 7270 (mkfs.ext3) score 617 or a child Aug 20 01:04:50 kernel: [42950317.660000] Killed process 7270 (mkfs.ext3) I wonder if the system had nothing else left to page out to swap [1]. I'm not sure what to do about this problem through, but it would be nice to know whether there is a partitioning scheme that causes the problem to occur. [1] http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kernel/2008/6/11/2092024 -- Gordon Farquharson GnuPG Key ID: 32D6D676 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
