Bug 3128 - kernel panic when swap space exhausted.
Summary: kernel panic when swap space exhausted.
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED DEFERRED
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Linux
Classification: Retired
Component: kernel
Version: 6.0
Hardware: i386
OS: Linux
medium
high
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: David Lawrence
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 1999-05-28 18:37 UTC by simra
Modified: 2008-05-01 15:37 UTC (History)
0 users

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 1999-05-29 15:53:57 UTC
Embargoed:

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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.
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