Re: Kernel Image for SMP + HIGHMEM
On Wed, Sep 24, 2003 at 08:20:10AM -0700, Mark Ferlatte wrote:
> Be aware that there are some _nasty_ bugs in the 2.4 kernel's with
> high IO load machines with more than 1GB of memory. I have 4
> machines in production with 4GB RAM, dual CPU, and 320GB to 1.4TB
> RAIDs, and performance was _horrible_ (kswapd chewing up all CPU, IO
> taking forever). Apparently Linux can't do block IO from buffers
> above 1GB, but the VM subsystem doesn't know that, so isn't smart
> about freeing pages. Dropping the machines down to 1GB fixed the
> problem; they are now about as fast as we expected.
These bugs manifested for me mostly when loading the ncpfs and smb
modules failed. After compiling them into the kernel it seems to work
OK. I have 2.4.21 kernels running on two production servers with 4Gb
ram at the moment and other than the failure to load the modules I did
not have problems so far (after about two weeks).
Regards
Johann
--
Johann Spies Telefoon: 021-808 4036
Informasietegnologie, Universiteit van Stellenbosch
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine,
or nakedness, or peril, or sword?...But in all these
things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved
us." Romans 8:35,37
Reply to: