We get this error from "ls": ------ root# ls -f ls: Memory exhausted root# ------ with "top" and "xosview" we see that "ls" grows until it consumes all available memory (256 Mbytes) and dies with the above error. The directory with this problem is NFS mounted from an SGI running IRIX 6.5.7m. The directory is located on an XLV logical volume and contains about 2000 files. Other directories with fewer files seem to be fine. Further details on mount options, disk sizes, etc... are available upon request to olchansk K.O.
Looks like an interoperability bug between the nfs implementations in the kernel. reassigning.
Known SGI problem. They sometimes duplicate directory keys and that causes an infinite directory size!