Public bug reported:
Binary package hint: linux-image-2.6.17-10-server
Hello,
when doing tests with huge machine configurations at VMware we've noticed
that if machine has more than 63GB of memory then kernel fails to boot, saying
that it run out of memory:
[42949372.960000] Linux version 2.6.17-10-server ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) (gcc
version 4.1.2 20060928 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.1-13ubuntu5)) #2 SMP Fri Oct 1
3 18:47:26 UTC 2006 (Ubuntu 2.6.17-10.33-server)
<6>[42949372.960000] BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
<4>[42949372.960000] BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f800 (usable)
<4>[42949372.960000] BIOS-e820: 000000000009f800 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
<4>[42949372.960000] BIOS-e820: 00000000000ca000 - 00000000000cc000 (reserved)
<4>[42949372.960000] BIOS-e820: 00000000000dc000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
<4>[42949372.960000] BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 00000000efef0000 (usable)
<4>[42949372.960000] BIOS-e820: 00000000efef0000 - 00000000efeff000 (ACPI data)
<4>[42949372.960000] BIOS-e820: 00000000efeff000 - 00000000eff00000 (ACPI NVS)
<4>[42949372.960000] BIOS-e820: 00000000eff00000 - 00000000f0000000 (usable)
<4>[42949372.960000] BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec10000 (reserved)
<4>[42949372.960000] BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee01000 (reserved)
<4>[42949372.960000] BIOS-e820: 00000000fffe0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
<4>[42949372.960000] BIOS-e820: 0000000100000000 - 0000000fffc00000 (usable)
<5>[42949372.960000] 64636MB HIGHMEM available.
<5>[42949372.960000] 896MB LOWMEM available.
<6>[42949372.960000] found SMP MP-table at 000f6c90
<4>[42949372.960000] NX (Execute Disable) protection: active
<7>[42949372.960000] On node 0 totalpages: 16776192
<1>[42949372.960000] bootmem alloc of 536838144 bytes failed!
<0>[42949372.960000] Kernel panic - not syncing: Out of memory
With default initrd size problem starts occuring somewhere between 62.5
and 63GB of memory in the box. Problem is that by default 32bit kernel
reports that initrd image should be loaded just below 512MB boundary.
This splits 896MB lowmem block into two pieces - one from ~8MB to ~500MB
(our tests show that there is something around 502MB of memory here) and
one from ~512 to 896MB (384MB large). And unfortunately when there is
more than 63GB of memory then pages array grows beyond 502MB, memory
allocation fails, and system panics and then triplefaults as panic
occured too early...
Problem does not occur with 64bit kernel, and also does not occur with
initrd disabled.
Is there any reason why kernel reports that initrd should be loaded just
below 512MB? If it would ask for initrd being loaded below 64MB (or
just below 800MB) then there would be one quite huge and one small
region in lowmem, and 512MB page array would fit there without glitch...
Thanks, Petr
** Affects: linux-source-2.6.17 (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided
Status: Unconfirmed
--
32bit kernels do not boot on box with more than 63GB of memory
https://launchpad.net/bugs/87278
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