[Lxc-users] Do not understand why OOM killer is being triggered by a DD

Aaron Staley aaron at picloud.com
Sat Jun 15 02:40:24 UTC 2013


Hello,

I'm running into a troublesome scenario where the OOM killer is hard
killing processes in my container when I write a file with size exceeding
the memory limitation.

Scenario:

I have an LXC container where memory.limit_in_bytes is set to 300 MB.

I attempt to dd a ~500 MB file as follows:

dd if=/dev/zero of=test2 bs=100k count=5010

Roughly 20% of the time, the Linux OOM manager is triggered by this command
and a process is killed.  Needless to say, this is highly unintended
behavior; dd is meant to simulate an actual "useful" file write by a
program running inside the container.


Details:
While file caches get large (260 MB), rss and file map seem to stay quite
low.  Here's an example of what memory.stat may look like during the write:
cache 278667264
rss 20971520
mapped_file 24576
pgpgin 138147
pgpgout 64993
swap 0
pgfault 55054
pgmajfault 2
inactive_anon 10637312
active_anon 10342400
inactive_file 278339584
active_file 319488
unevictable 0
hierarchical_memory_limit 300003328
hierarchical_memsw_limit 300003328
total_cache 278667264
total_rss 20971520
total_mapped_file 24576
total_pgpgin 138147
total_pgpgout 64993
total_swap 0
total_pgfault 55054
total_pgmajfault 2
total_inactive_anon 10637312
total_active_anon 10342400
total_inactive_file 278339584
total_active_file 319488
total_unevictable 0



Here's a paste from dmesg where the OOM triggered a kill.  I'm not too
familiar with the distinctions between the types of memory; one thing that
stands out is that while "Node 0 Normal" is very low, there is plenty of
Node 0 DMA32 memory free. Can anyone explain why a file write is causing
the OOM? How do I prevent this from happening?

The log:

[1801523.686755] Task in /lxc/c-7 killed as a result of limit of /lxc/c-7
[1801523.686758] memory: usage 292972kB, limit 292972kB, failcnt 39580
[1801523.686760] memory+swap: usage 292972kB, limit 292972kB, failcnt 0
[1801523.686762] Mem-Info:
[1801523.686764] Node 0 DMA per-cpu:
[1801523.686767] CPU    0: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[1801523.686769] CPU    1: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[1801523.686771] CPU    2: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[1801523.686773] CPU    3: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[1801523.686775] CPU    4: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[1801523.686778] CPU    5: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[1801523.686780] CPU    6: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[1801523.686782] CPU    7: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
[1801523.686783] Node 0 DMA32 per-cpu:
[1801523.686786] CPU    0: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd: 158
[1801523.686788] CPU    1: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd: 114
[1801523.686790] CPU    2: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd: 133
[1801523.686792] CPU    3: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:  69
[1801523.686794] CPU    4: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:  70
[1801523.686796] CPU    5: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd: 131
[1801523.686798] CPU    6: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd: 169
[1801523.686800] CPU    7: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:  30
[1801523.686802] Node 0 Normal per-cpu:
[1801523.686804] CPU    0: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd: 162
[1801523.686806] CPU    1: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd: 184
[1801523.686809] CPU    2: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:  99
[1801523.686811] CPU    3: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:  82
[1801523.686813] CPU    4: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:  90
[1801523.686815] CPU    5: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd:  99
[1801523.686817] CPU    6: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd: 157
[1801523.686819] CPU    7: hi:  186, btch:  31 usd: 138
[1801523.686824] active_anon:60439 inactive_anon:28841 isolated_anon:0
[1801523.686825]  active_file:110417 inactive_file:907078 isolated_file:64
[1801523.686827]  unevictable:0 dirty:164722 writeback:1652 unstable:0
[1801523.686828]  free:445909 slab_reclaimable:176594
slab_unreclaimable:14754
[1801523.686829]  mapped:4753 shmem:66 pagetables:3600 bounce:0
[1801523.686831] Node 0 DMA free:7904kB min:8kB low:8kB high:12kB
active_anon:0kB inactive_anon:0kB active_file:0kB inactive_file:0kB
unevictable:0kB isolated(anon):0kB isolated(file):0kB present:7648kB
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? no
[1801523.686841] lowmem_reserve[]: 0 4016 7048 7048
[1801523.686845] Node 0 DMA32 free:1770072kB min:6116kB low:7644kB
high:9172kB active_anon:22312kB inactive_anon:12128kB active_file:4988kB
inactive_file:2190136kB unevictable:0kB isolated(anon):0kB
isolated(file):256kB present:4112640kB mlocked:0kB dirty:535072kB
writeback:6452kB mapped:4kB shmem:4kB slab_reclaimable:72888kB
slab_unreclaimable:1100kB kernel_stack:120kB pagetables:832kB unstable:0kB
bounce:0kB writeback_tmp:0kB pages_scanned:0 all_unreclaimable? no
[1801523.686855] lowmem_reserve[]: 0 0 3031 3031
[1801523.686859] Node 0 Normal free:5660kB min:4616kB low:5768kB
high:6924kB active_anon:219444kB inactive_anon:103236kB
active_file:436680kB inactive_file:1438176kB unevictable:0kB
isolated(anon):0kB isolated(file):0kB present:3104640kB mlocked:0kB
dirty:123816kB writeback:156kB mapped:19008kB shmem:260kB
slab_reclaimable:633488kB slab_unreclaimable:57916kB kernel_stack:2800kB
pagetables:13568kB unstable:0kB bounce:0kB writeback_tmp:0kB
pages_scanned:0 all_unreclaimable? no
[1801523.686869] lowmem_reserve[]: 0 0 0 0
[1801523.686873] Node 0 DMA: 2*4kB 3*8kB 0*16kB 2*32kB 4*64kB 3*128kB
2*256kB 1*512kB 2*1024kB 2*2048kB 0*4096kB = 7904kB
[1801523.686883] Node 0 DMA32: 129*4kB 87*8kB 86*16kB 89*32kB 87*64kB
65*128kB 12*256kB 5*512kB 2*1024kB 13*2048kB 419*4096kB = 1769852kB
[1801523.686893] Node 0 Normal: 477*4kB 23*8kB 1*16kB 5*32kB 0*64kB 3*128kB
3*256kB 1*512kB 0*1024kB 1*2048kB 0*4096kB = 5980kB
[1801523.686903] 1017542 total pagecache pages
[1801523.686905] 0 pages in swap cache
[1801523.686907] Swap cache stats: add 0, delete 0, find 0/0
[1801523.686908] Free swap  = 1048572kB
[1801523.686910] Total swap = 1048572kB
[1801523.722319] 1837040 pages RAM
[1801523.722322] 58337 pages reserved
[1801523.722323] 972948 pages shared
[1801523.722324] 406948 pages non-shared
[1801523.722326] [ pid ]   uid  tgid total_vm      rss cpu oom_adj
oom_score_adj name
[1801523.722396] [31266]     0 31266     6404      511   6       0
    0 init
[1801523.722445] [32489]     0 32489    12370      688   7     -17
-1000 sshd
[1801523.722460] [32511]   101 32511    10513      325   0       0
    0 rsyslogd
[1801523.722495] [32625]     0 32625    17706      838   2       0
    0 sshd
[1801523.722522] [32652]   103 32652     5900      176   0       0
    0 dbus-daemon
[1801523.722583] [  526]     0   526     1553      168   5       0
    0 getty
[1801523.722587] [  530]     0   530     1553      168   1       0
    0 getty
[1801523.722593] [  537]  2007   537    17706      423   5       0
    0 sshd
[1801523.722629] [  538]  2007   538    16974     5191   1       0
    0 python
[1801523.722650] [  877]  2007   877     2106      157   7       0
    0 dd
[1801523.722657] Memory cgroup out of memory: Kill process 538 (python)
score 71 or sacrifice child
[1801523.722674] Killed process 538 (python) total-vm:67896kB,
anon-rss:17464kB, file-rss:3300kB

I'm running on Linux ip-10-8-139-98 3.2.0-29-virtual #46-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jul
27 17:23:50 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux on Amazon EC2.


Thanks for any help you can provide,
Aaron Staley
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