Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Mon, 7 Jan 2002 09:34:21 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Mon, 7 Jan 2002 09:34:16 -0500 Received: from ns.ithnet.com ([217.64.64.10]:48389 "HELO heather.ithnet.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id ; Mon, 7 Jan 2002 09:33:56 -0500 Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 15:33:48 +0100 From: Stephan von Krawczynski To: Petro Cc: andihartmann@freenet.de, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [2.4.17/18pre] VM and swap - it's really unusable Message-Id: <20020107153348.08a4a23f.skraw@ithnet.com> In-Reply-To: <20020107071531.GC20760@auctionwatch.com> In-Reply-To: <200201040019.BAA30736@webserver.ithnet.com> <3C360D6E.9020207@athlon.maya.org> <20020105092442.GC26154@auctionwatch.com> <20020105164405.5d9f5232.skraw@ithnet.com> <20020107071531.GC20760@auctionwatch.com> Organization: ith Kommunikationstechnik GmbH X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.6.6 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i686-pc-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sun, 6 Jan 2002 23:15:31 -0800 Petro wrote: > On Sat, Jan 05, 2002 at 04:44:05PM +0100, Stephan von Krawczynski wrote: > > On Sat, 5 Jan 2002 01:24:42 -0800 > > Petro wrote: > > > > > "We" (Auctionwatch.com) are experiencing problems that appear to be > > > related to VM, I realize that this question was not directed at me: > > > > And how exactly do the problems look like? > > After some time, ranging from 1 to 48 hours, mysql quits in an > unclean fashion (dies leaving tables improperly closed) with a dump > in the mysql log file that looks like: mysql question: is this a binary from some distro or self-compiled? If self-compiled can you show your ./configure paras, please? > Which the Mysql support team says appears to be memory corruption. > Since this has happened on 4 different machines, and one of them had > memtest86 run on it (coming up clean), they seem (witness Sasha's > post) to think this may have something to do with the memory > handling in the kernel. There is a big difference between memory _corruption_ and a VM deficiency. No app can cope with a _corruption_ and is perfectly allowed to core dump or exit (or trash your disk). But this should not happen on allocation failures. Unless all your RAM is from the same series I do not really believe in mem corruption. I would try Martins small VM patch, as it looks like being a bit more efficient in low mem conditions and this may well be the case you are running into. This means 2.4.17 standard + patch. Regards, Stephan - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/