Bug 3128

Summary: kernel panic when swap space exhausted.
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: simra
Component: kernelAssignee: David Lawrence <dkl>
Status: CLOSED DEFERRED QA Contact:
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 6.0   
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: i386   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 1999-05-29 15:53:57 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description simra 1999-05-28 18:37:49 UTC
Here's my system: i686, 128MB RAM, 136548k swap space.
kernel 2.2.5-15,  passing kernel flag "mem=128M".

When my swap space is exhausted, the machine simply stops.
It's not thrashing- it just stops.  No mouse response, no
keyboard response, the HD LED is not on.

It's very difficult to collect any other diagnostics, but I
was watching 'top' as the machine ran out of memory and top
observed that the swap space remaining was 0k.

I will forward this bug report to
linux-kernel.edu

Comment 1 simra 1999-05-28 18:40:59 UTC
I should mention that I'm using the stock kernel from the redhat
distro. The following modules were resident:

Module                  Size  Used by
nfs                    29944   9  (autoclean)
lockd                  30856   1  (autoclean) [nfs]
sunrpc                 52356   1  (autoclean) [nfs lockd]
3c59x                  18920   1  (autoclean)

R

Comment 2 Jeff Johnson 1999-05-29 15:53:59 UTC
The "solution" is to add more swap space. There are many, many
deadlock conditions in the kernel that can be exercised by running
out of swap.