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[ts-7000] Re: major Linux 2.4 kernel bug

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Subject: [ts-7000] Re: major Linux 2.4 kernel bug
From: "Yan Seiner" <>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 13:58:48 -0000
--- In  "Jesse Off" <> wrote:
>
> A lot of people have been noticing "__alloc_pages: 0-order allocation 
> failed" being printed by the kernel and subsequent kernel freezes in
low 
> memory conditions.  It turns out that the kernel actually has a lot
more 
> memory free when these messages appear and the intentional Linux
behavior 
> on out-of-memory condition is to randomly kill processes (*not* to lock 
> up with these messages).
> 
> This patch fixes a bug originally fixed by a Linux contracting firm for 
> one of our customers, but who both were unwilling to give the GPL'ed
code 
> back to the community (they wanted to sell it)

???  That's pretty interesting...  How do you go about selling a
kernel patch?  Especially a GPL'd one?  :-)

Anyway, thanks for the fix; I'll try it but it may not be until next
week...

One related question that this brought up:

Is anyone aware of a way to prioritize the way the kernel kills processes?

This could be important to me...  Our product will use a small amount
of critical code - stuff that handles the local sensors, comm with
upstrem monitoring equipment, etc. and communicates with the PLC that
ultimately controls the machine.  I'm guessing that all of this code
put together will use < 500K or so of memory when running....

The 800# gorilla is the user interface, which right now consists of
apache+php, qt/emebedded and konqueror.  This together uses some 16 MB
of RAM when running...  And is completely unnecessary to the safe
operation of our product.

Obviously, in a OOM situation, I want the kernel to kill konqueror +
qt/e first.  The webserver is useful even if konq is dead because the
machine can still be controlled remotely, say by a laptop plugged
directly into the panel or a remote desktop machine.

Any way to do that?  Is there a critical priority list in the process
tables somewhere?  I am not a kernel guru by any stretch, so I may not
even be asking the right questions....

--Yan





 
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