Page allocation failure

[Igor Novgorodov]

I'm seeing occasional page allocation failures on Linux (2.6.39.3) host. The server is 1 x Xeon E5620 / 12G RAM. Linux distro is Gentoo.

These allocation failures seem to be non-fatal, as guest continue to work.

The VM has one NIC (82545EM) bridged to hosts' br0 interface.

I've tried to increase vm.min_free_kbytes to 540672 to decrease VM pressure, but it had no effect.

I've read changelog to 4.0.12, and it does not mention such errors as fixed, so i think the bug is there too.

[243269.783822] VBoxHeadless: page allocation failure. order:9, mode:0x344d2
[243269.783827] Pid: 24123, comm: VBoxHeadless Tainted: G        W   2.6.39.3-ARTEK #2
[243269.783830] Call Trace:
[243269.783838]  [<ffffffff8109448e>] ? __alloc_pages_nodemask+0x7ee/0x8b0
[243269.783851]  [<ffffffffa000a8dc>] ? rtR0MemObjNativeLockKernel+0x2bc/0x5d0 [vboxdrv]
[243269.783858]  [<ffffffffa000aa28>] ? rtR0MemObjNativeLockKernel+0x408/0x5d0 [vboxdrv]
[243269.783864]  [<ffffffffa001d1c9>] ? g_abExecMemory+0x23a9/0x180000 [vboxdrv]
[243269.783869]  [<ffffffffa001ddbd>] ? g_abExecMemory+0x2f9d/0x180000 [vboxdrv]
[243269.783874]  [<ffffffffa002eb87>] ? g_abExecMemory+0x13d67/0x180000 [vboxdrv]
[243269.783879]  [<ffffffffa00309cd>] ? g_abExecMemory+0x15bad/0x180000 [vboxdrv]
[243269.783885]  [<ffffffffa00292e1>] ? g_abExecMemory+0xe4c1/0x180000 [vboxdrv]
[243269.783890]  [<ffffffffa0030ee5>] ? g_abExecMemory+0x160c5/0x180000 [vboxdrv]
[243269.783896]  [<ffffffffa0005a5b>] ? supdrvIOCtl+0x149b/0x28b0 [vboxdrv]
[243269.783903]  [<ffffffffa0009f9b>] ? rtR0MemAllocEx+0x7b/0x120 [vboxdrv]
[243269.783908]  [<ffffffffa0000422>] ? SUPDrvLinuxIDC+0x1c2/0x280 [vboxdrv]
[243269.783912]  [<ffffffff810dac3b>] ? do_vfs_ioctl+0x9b/0x500
[243269.783917]  [<ffffffff81655c87>] ? schedule+0x237/0x6a0
[243269.783919]  [<ffffffff810db0e9>] ? sys_ioctl+0x49/0x80
[243269.783922]  [<ffffffff816584bb>] ? system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b
[243269.783924] Mem-Info:
[243269.783925] DMA per-cpu:
[243269.783927] CPU    0: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[243269.783929] CPU    1: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[243269.783930] CPU    2: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[243269.783932] CPU    3: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[243269.783934] CPU    4: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[243269.783936] CPU    5: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[243269.783937] CPU    6: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[243269.783939] CPU    7: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[243269.783941] DMA32 per-cpu:
[243269.783942] CPU    0: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:   0
[243269.783944] CPU    1: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:   0
[243269.783946] CPU    2: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:   0
[243269.783948] CPU    3: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:   0
[243269.783950] CPU    4: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:   0
[243269.783952] CPU    5: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd: 158
[243269.783954] CPU    6: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:   0
[243269.783955] CPU    7: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:   0
[243269.783957] Normal per-cpu:
[243269.783958] CPU    0: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:   0
[243269.783960] CPU    1: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:   0
[243269.783962] CPU    2: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:   0
[243269.783964] CPU    3: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:   0
[243269.783966] CPU    4: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:   0
[243269.783967] CPU    5: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:   0
[243269.783969] CPU    6: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:   0
[243269.783971] CPU    7: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:   0
[243269.783976] active_anon:192478 inactive_anon:59005 isolated_anon:0
[243269.783977]  active_file:690743 inactive_file:728689 isolated_file:0
[243269.783978]  unevictable:3322 dirty:351 writeback:0 unstable:0
[243269.783979]  free:191613 slab_reclaimable:32007 slab_unreclaimable:102721
[243269.783980]  mapped:676358 shmem:149881 pagetables:4103 bounce:0
[243269.783986] DMA free:15972kB min:684kB low:852kB high:1024kB active_anon:0kB inactive_anon:0kB active_file:0kB inactive_file:0kB unevictable:0kB isolated(anon):0kB isolated(file):0kB present:15748kB mlocked:0kB dirty:0kB writeback:0kB mapped:0kB shmem:0kB slab_reclaimable:0kB slab_unreclaimable:0kB kernel_stack:0kB pagetables:0kB unstable:0kB bounce:0kB writeback_tmp:0kB pages_scanned:0 all_unreclaimable? yes
[243269.783991] lowmem_reserve[]: 0 2991 12081 12081
[243269.783998] DMA32 free:236396kB min:133712kB low:167140kB high:200568kB active_anon:27020kB inactive_anon:123176kB active_file:1143880kB inactive_file:1210752kB unevictable:2344kB isolated(anon):0kB isolated(file):0kB present:3063520kB mlocked:0kB dirty:104kB writeback:0kB mapped:303724kB shmem:125252kB slab_reclaimable:57116kB slab_unreclaimable:58756kB kernel_stack:112kB pagetables:1272kB unstable:0kB bounce:0kB writeback_tmp:0kB pages_scanned:40 all_unreclaimable? no
[243269.784004] lowmem_reserve[]: 0 0 9090 9090
[243269.784011] Normal free:514704kB min:406268kB low:507832kB high:609400kB active_anon:742892kB inactive_anon:112844kB active_file:1619092kB inactive_file:1704004kB unevictable:10944kB isolated(anon):0kB isolated(file):0kB present:9308160kB mlocked:4812kB dirty:1300kB writeback:0kB mapped:2401708kB shmem:474272kB slab_reclaimable:70912kB slab_unreclaimable:352128kB kernel_stack:2280kB pagetables:15140kB unstable:0kB bounce:0kB writeback_tmp:0kB pages_scanned:0 all_unreclaimable? no
[243269.784017] lowmem_reserve[]: 0 0 0 0
[243269.784020] DMA: 1*4kB 2*8kB 1*16kB 2*32kB 2*64kB 1*128kB 1*256kB 0*512kB 1*1024kB 1*2048kB 3*4096kB = 15972kB
[243269.784028] DMA32: 1107*4kB 2829*8kB 1201*16kB 774*32kB 539*64kB 343*128kB 164*256kB 77*512kB 5*1024kB 1*2048kB 0*4096kB = 238020kB
[243269.784035] Normal: 808*4kB 1939*8kB 3966*16kB 2498*32kB 1600*64kB 902*128kB 345*256kB 70*512kB 9*1024kB 1*2048kB 0*4096kB = 515416kB
[243269.784043] 1579628 total pagecache pages
[243269.784045] 9388 pages in swap cache
[243269.784047] Swap cache stats: add 30768, delete 21380, find 125/125
[243269.784049] Free swap  = 16653148kB
[243269.784050] Total swap = 16776116kB
[243269.810237] 3145727 pages RAM
[243269.810239] 590735 pages reserved
[243269.810240] 1129161 pages shared
[243269.810241] 1250493 pages non-shared