2001-11-02 13:10:51

by Andreas Franck

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Weird /proc/meminfo output on 2.4.13-ac5

Hello folks,

since about two days I'm running a machine here with 2.4.13-ac5,
and am quite satisfied with the performance. But now, I noticed
some strange output in /proc/meminfo:

$ cat /proc/meminfo
total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
Mem: 789250048 781295616 7954432 659456 402890752
18446744073478758400
Swap: 6744576000 282624 6744293376
MemTotal: 770752 kB
MemFree: 7768 kB
MemShared: 644 kB
Buffers: 393448 kB
Cached: 4294741680 kB <------ This is impossible, i think? :-)
SwapCached: 232 kB
Active: 254160 kB
Inact_dirty: 307272 kB
Inact_clean: 80 kB
Inact_target: 157284 kB
HighTotal: 0 kB
HighFree: 0 kB
LowTotal: 770752 kB
LowFree: 7768 kB
SwapTotal: 6586500 kB
SwapFree: 6586224 kB

The machine is an AMD Athlon 1200, with 768 MB RAM and about 6G swap.
Is there anything more you need to investigate this problem? Then please
don't hesitate to ask.

Greetings,
Andreas


2001-11-02 18:35:36

by Petr Vandrovec

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Weird /proc/meminfo output on 2.4.13-ac5

On 2 Nov 01 at 14:10, Andreas Franck wrote:
> $ cat /proc/meminfo
> total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
> Mem: 789250048 781295616 7954432 659456 402890752
> 18446744073478758400
> Swap: 6744576000 282624 6744293376
> MemTotal: 770752 kB
> MemFree: 7768 kB
> MemShared: 644 kB
> Buffers: 393448 kB
> Cached: 4294741680 kB <------ This is impossible, i think? :-)

Problem appeared in my 2.4.13-ac4 yesterday at home too. It happened to
me when I was checking health of my HDD - either during 'dd if=/dev/hde1
of=/dev/null bs=8M', or during copying all files from VFAT (/dev/hde1)
partition to /dev/null on filesystem level file by file.

And if we are talking about it, 2.4.13-ac4 here at work reports that
too. But strange thing is that this machine has just 200MB VFAT partition
of no use, and I do not remember that I ever did read from /dev/hd* since
last reboot. Shift-scrolllock does not report any unusual values.

I'll upgrade to -ac6 and I'll see.
Petr Vandrovec
[email protected]

2001-11-02 21:20:32

by Mike Fedyk

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Weird /proc/meminfo output on 2.4.13-ac5

On Fri, Nov 02, 2001 at 07:34:49PM +0000, Petr Vandrovec wrote:
> On 2 Nov 01 at 14:10, Andreas Franck wrote:
> > $ cat /proc/meminfo
> > total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
> > Mem: 789250048 781295616 7954432 659456 402890752
> > 18446744073478758400
> > Swap: 6744576000 282624 6744293376
> > MemTotal: 770752 kB
> > MemFree: 7768 kB
> > MemShared: 644 kB
> > Buffers: 393448 kB
> > Cached: 4294741680 kB <------ This is impossible, i think? :-)
>
> Problem appeared in my 2.4.13-ac4 yesterday at home too. It happened to
> me when I was checking health of my HDD - either during 'dd if=/dev/hde1
> of=/dev/null bs=8M', or during copying all files from VFAT (/dev/hde1)
> partition to /dev/null on filesystem level file by file.
>
> And if we are talking about it, 2.4.13-ac4 here at work reports that
> too. But strange thing is that this machine has just 200MB VFAT partition
> of no use, and I do not remember that I ever did read from /dev/hd* since
> last reboot. Shift-scrolllock does not report any unusual values.
>
> I'll upgrade to -ac6 and I'll see.

It won't help. You'll need a patch that rik has posted a few days ago.

This problem is for 2.4.13, 2.4.13-acX, and 2.4.14pre*.

Latest pre or ac patches don't fix it.

Latest:
pre6
-ac6

Mike

2001-11-02 22:34:12

by Hugh Dickins

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Weird /proc/meminfo output on 2.4.13-ac5

On Fri, 2 Nov 2001, Mike Fedyk wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 02, 2001 at 07:34:49PM +0000, Petr Vandrovec wrote:
> > On 2 Nov 01 at 14:10, Andreas Franck wrote:
> > > $ cat /proc/meminfo
> > > Cached: 4294741680 kB <------ This is impossible, i think? :-)
> >
> > I'll upgrade to -ac6 and I'll see.
>
> It won't help. You'll need a patch that rik has posted a few days ago.
>
> This problem is for 2.4.13, 2.4.13-acX, and 2.4.14pre*.

I believe that problem only applied to 2.4.13-acX, and arose because
an inappropriate part of 2.4.13 (relating to blockdev in pagecache) crept
into 2.4.13-acX. 2.4.13 and 2.4.14-preX should not need Rik's patch.

Hugh

2001-11-02 23:17:17

by Mike Fedyk

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Weird /proc/meminfo output on 2.4.13-ac5

On Fri, Nov 02, 2001 at 10:35:29PM +0000, Hugh Dickins wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Nov 2001, Mike Fedyk wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 02, 2001 at 07:34:49PM +0000, Petr Vandrovec wrote:
> > > On 2 Nov 01 at 14:10, Andreas Franck wrote:
> > > > $ cat /proc/meminfo
> > > > Cached: 4294741680 kB <------ This is impossible, i think? :-)
> > >
> > > I'll upgrade to -ac6 and I'll see.
> >
> > It won't help. You'll need a patch that rik has posted a few days ago.
> >
> > This problem is for 2.4.13, 2.4.13-acX, and 2.4.14pre*.
>
> I believe that problem only applied to 2.4.13-acX, and arose because
> an inappropriate part of 2.4.13 (relating to blockdev in pagecache) crept
> into 2.4.13-acX. 2.4.13 and 2.4.14-preX should not need Rik's patch.
>
> Hugh
>

I am running: $ ud -d
- Uptime for mikef-linux -
Now : 1 day(s), 03:44:33 running Linux
2.4.14-pre6+preempt+netdev_random+ext3_0.9.14-2414p5

Check out vmstat:
0 0 0 49852 3340 180884 4294884956 0 0 1 126 134 249 2
1 97
1 0 0 49852 3916 180424 4294885152 0 0 0 62 127 254 3
2 95
0 0 0 49852 3512 180472 4294885496 0 0 0 60 133 267 5
3 91
0 0 0 49852 4172 179696 4294885660 0 0 0 44 120 228 3
3 94
0 0 0 49948 4176 178024 4294885640 0 25 120 93 141 362 9
6 85
0 1 0 49948 3392 174684 4294883668 0 41 249 137 183 415 19
11 70
0 1 0 49944 3188 176904 4294880964 9 31 293 166 198 450 5
7 89
0 1 0 50160 4832 177164 4294880100 0 0 76 197 131 395 36
12 52

There you go. I've also seen a report against 2.4.13 on this list from
Miroslav Zubcic.

Mike