problem with memory and jumbo frames

[Missing Ghost]

Hi everybody,
I'm a new linux user. I would like to increase the size of the mtu on my gigabit ethernet nic (eth6) for jumbo frames. When I do this (using "mtu" in /etc/network/interfaces) I get stuff like this on the console:

swapper: page allocation failure. order:2, mode:0x20
[<c0143449>] __alloc_pages+0x2f9/0x370
[<c01434e5>] __get_free_pages+0x25/0x40
[<c0146fe3>] kmem_getpages+0x23/0xd0
[<c0254b46>] ip_forward+0x1d6/0x2c0
[<c0147d96>] cache_grow+0xe6/0x1e0
[<c0148023>] cache_alloc_refill+0x193/0x250
[<c0148558>] __kmalloc+0x88/0xa0
[<c022fdc7>] alloc_skb+0x47/0xf0
[<d0b906c5>] e1000_alloc_rx_buffers+0x65/0x110 [e1000]
[<d0b902cb>] e1000_clean_rx_irq+0xfb/0x490 [e1000]
[<c011c05b>] rebalance_tick+0xab/0xc0
[<d0b8ff2a>] e1000_intr+0x3a/0x90 [e1000]
[<c01086c9>] handle_IRQ_event+0x49/0x80
[<c0108a86>] do_IRQ+0xb6/0x1a0
[<c0106bd0>] common_interrupt+0x18/0x20
[<c0104030>] default_idle+0x0/0x40
[<c010405c>] default_idle+0x2c/0x40
[<c01040eb>] cpu_idle+0x3b/0x50
[<c01212ce>] printk+0x16e/0x1c0

right after when I do ifup and it repeats forever every 10 seconds.
my understanding is that swapper must have something to do with the memory? So what is this, does it matter and do I need to fix anything?
I'm running debian sarge 3.1r2 on x86 with the 2.6.8-3-686-smp linux kernel.
Thanks for your help

 

[drag]

looks like a kernel oops. This is a non-fatal error, but it may cause instabilities later on.

I think it's a driver bug for your nic card.

 

[drag]

I donno.

Try a updated kernel and see if happens with that. You can find ones for Sarge at backports.org
http://www.backports.org/instructions.html

But be carefull there have been some changes from 2.6.8 to 2.6.16 so make sure that you can get back to your old kernel if the new one doesn't work.

edit:
DevFS is depreciated in favor of Udev. If your using that you may have problems. Also there are other things that would have to be upgraded (like mkinitramfs) for building the initrd image.. I beleive. So use their apt-get instructions rather then just downloading the package.

Note that I've haven't used backports.org myself so I am not sure. Make sure that you have a knoppix cdrom or whatnot you can use for rescuing.

 

[Nothinman]

Yes, it's a driver and memory problem. The driver is trying an "order 2" allocation which I believe is 3 contiguous memory pages and it's failing. I'm assuming that it's asking for physically contiguous pages for DMA reasons and 3 physically contiguous pages can be hard to come by once the system has been up for a bit.

If the NIC still works I would ignore it, if not I would just skip the jumbo frames for now. I mean, are you really doing enough large transfers that jumbo frames will make a difference?

 

[Missing Ghost]

Ok thanks a lot for the answers guys. I think I decided what I will do. I will set the mtu to 1500. When I do this I get like only this message once and than it stops, it's only when I set the mtu bigger that my console gets filled with this all 10 seconds. As soon as the newer kernels will be available in debian -stable (>2.6.8 seems to be only for -testing/-unstable) I will try back jumboframes. I really don't feel like trying any not stable kernel at this time since I kind of already put the server in production....guess I should have tested more before doing this. And yes, jumbo frames is important for me. I'm setup with an ethernet private network only for storage and the goal was gigabit with big frames. Does what I want to do seems like a wise idea? (wait until the kernel is available and try back then)

 

[Nothinman]

As soon as the newer kernels will be available in debian -stable

You'll be waiting a long time, 2.6.8 is all that will ever be available in sarge. Once Debian releases stable they never put new versions of packages in the distribution, although I believe an exception is being made for somethings like FF that don't make backporting fixes easy.

And yes, jumbo frames is important for me. I'm setup with an ethernet private network only for storage and the goal was gigabit with big frames. Does what I want to do seems like a wise idea? (wait until the kernel is available and try back then)

Oh sorry, I assumed this was for home.

 

[Missing Ghost]

That's weird, when I installed it it came with like 2.4.something and I updated it. So I'm confused about if they do update the kernels or not. I'm new to debian and I don't really know a lot about how they release everything.

 

[Nothinman]

They do not. Sarge defaults to a 2.4 kernel but also shipped with 2.6.8 along side it. If you would have typed 'linux26' at the installer CD's boot prompt you would have installed 2.6.8 directly. You must have told it to install 2.6.8 at some point because I can't imagine that it would have done that migration without at least asking if you were sure.

 

[Missing Ghost]

Yes I got it with apt-get.

 

[Nothinman]

Alright, that makes sense. Have you tried it with the 2.4 kernel? There's a chance that the driver in that kernel won't have the same problem.