RE: Memory corruption when running VMware. (was File curruption when running VMware)

RE: Memory corruption when running VMware. (was File curruption when running VMware)

[Hong-Gunn Chew]

> Hi Petr, Andrea,
> 
> I have been trying different kernel configurations to 
> overcome this problem.  I found that turning on APIC seem to 
> work properly.  However turning on IO-APIC causes it to hang 
> just after X is started, which seems to be during the startup 
> of gdm. 
An added note is that with Local APIC on and IO-APIC off, 
I am able to start the system up, but swtiching from X to a virtual
console during a session, as well as during shutdown, causes the system
to hang.  There are no error messages that I can find.
Does anyone know the cause of the problem?

Recap of my system:
CPU:		P4 2.0A 2.0GHz
RAM:		4x256MB RDRAM PC800
MB:		ASUS P4-TE firmware:1005
		Intel i850
Disk:		IBM Deskstar 120GXP 80GB
Graphics:	ATI 7500 OEM

Distri:	RedHat 7.2
Kernel:	2.4.18
X:		Xfree 4.2.0
glibc:	2.2.4-19.3

Thanks,
Hong-Gunn

Re: Memory corruption when running VMware. (was File curruption when running VMware)

[Andrea Arcangeli]

On Fri, May 03, 2002 at 12:23:35PM +0930, Hong-Gunn Chew wrote:
> Hi Petr, Andrea,
> 
> Petr wrote:
> >   So if you have >890MB of RAM and your kernel is compiled 
> > with support for pte in high memory, please stop using 
> > VMware, or reconfigure your 
> > kernel to not use pte in high memory (4GB config without 
> > pte-in-highmem is OK). Using pte-in-highmem with vmmon will 
> > cause kernel oopses and/or 
> > memory corruption :-(
> 
> I have been trying different kernel configurations to overcome this
> problem.  I found that turning on APIC seem to work properly.  However
> turning on IO-APIC causes it to hang just after X is started, which
> seems to be during the startup of gdm.
> I do have a silly question to ask though.  How do I compile the kernel
> NOT to use pte in high memory?

the simplest patch to avoid pte in highmem is this. It's against 19pre7aa3
but it will apply cleanly to the kernel you're using.

--- 2.4.19pre7aa3/mm/memory.c.~1~	Tue Apr 30 19:53:08 2002
+++ 2.4.19pre7aa3/mm/memory.c	Fri May  3 09:58:23 2002
@@ -1493,7 +1493,7 @@
 {
 	struct page * page;
 
-	page = alloc_page(GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_HIGHMEM);
+	page = alloc_page(GFP_KERNEL);
 	if (page)
 		clear_pagetable(page);
 	return page;

However if I would be in you I'd simply add mem=850M to the append line
in /etc/lilo.conf until the vmmon/vmnet update is released, that should
be the most confortable approch from your part.

> Andrea wrote:
> > passing to the kernel mem=850M in lilo at boot will be enough.
> 
> This did not work as it causes vmware to seg fault with a kernel oops:

Hmm looking at the bounce_end_io_read it looks like the kernel didn't
recognized you specified mem=850M via lilo, not idea why. You should
check with `free` that your kernel is using only 850M of ram before
starting vmware. Can you show the contents of /proc/meminfo right after
boot?

> [generic_file_readahead+288/304] [bounce_end_io_read+164/288]
> [isapnp_set_mem+23/272] [vfs_link+23/256] [system_call+51/56]
> 	   [<f61fd5d1>] [<c01272b0>] [<c0131e94>] [<c01e0527>]
> [<c013e487>]  [<c0106f0b>]
> 	
> 	Code: 8b 11 89 d0 25 00 07 01 00 3d 00 04 00 00 75 12 81 ca 00
> 00
> 
> Cheers,
> Hong-Gunn


Andrea

RE: Memory corruption when running VMware. (was File curruption when running VMware)

[Hong-Gunn Chew]

Hi Petr, Andrea,

Petr wrote:
>   So if you have >890MB of RAM and your kernel is compiled 
> with support for pte in high memory, please stop using 
> VMware, or reconfigure your 
> kernel to not use pte in high memory (4GB config without 
> pte-in-highmem is OK). Using pte-in-highmem with vmmon will 
> cause kernel oopses and/or 
> memory corruption :-(

I have been trying different kernel configurations to overcome this
problem.  I found that turning on APIC seem to work properly.  However
turning on IO-APIC causes it to hang just after X is started, which
seems to be during the startup of gdm.
I do have a silly question to ask though.  How do I compile the kernel
NOT to use pte in high memory?

Andrea wrote:
> passing to the kernel mem=850M in lilo at boot will be enough.

This did not work as it causes vmware to seg fault with a kernel oops:
	Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address
ffffe350
	 printing eip:
	f61ff30a
	*pde = 00001063
	*pte = 00000000
	Oops: 0000
	CPU:    0
	EIP:
0010:[nls_iso8859-1:__insmod_nls_iso8859-1_S.data_L2336+139562/11435686]
Tainted: PF
	EIP:    0010:[<f61ff30a>]    Tainted: PF
	EFLAGS: 00013286
	eax: ffffe350   ebx: e7652600   ecx: ffffe350   edx: 000000d0
	esi: e7652600   edi: 00000069   ebp: e7625de8   esp: e7625de8
	ds: 0018   es: 0018   ss: 0018
	Process vmware (pid: 2595, stackpage=e7625000)
	Stack: e7625e08 f61ff34d ffffe350 c02f8ee0 e7625e2c f5095a00
000000d0 e6d21000  
	       e7625eb8 f61ff41f e7652600 e7625e8d e7625e8e e7625e8f
e7625e40 00003286  
	       00003286 efe78d80 000001f0 00000000 e7589a80 c01e330f
000000bc 000001f0
	Call Trace:
[nls_iso8859-1:__insmod_nls_iso8859-1_S.data_L2336+139629/11435619]
[nls_iso8859-1:__insmod_nls_iso8859-1_S.data_L2336+139839/11435409]
[sys_sendmsg+303/480] [wait_for_buffers+86/144]
[nls_iso8859-1:__insmod_nls_iso8859-1_S.data_L2336+137406/11437842]
	Call Trace: [<f61ff34d>] [<f61ff41f>] [<c01e330f>] [<c0134a36>]
[<f61fea9e>]
	
[nls_iso8859-1:__insmod_nls_iso8859-1_S.data_L2336+132081/11443167]
[generic_file_readahead+288/304] [bounce_end_io_read+164/288]
[isapnp_set_mem+23/272] [vfs_link+23/256] [system_call+51/56]
	   [<f61fd5d1>] [<c01272b0>] [<c0131e94>] [<c01e0527>]
[<c013e487>]  [<c0106f0b>]
	
	Code: 8b 11 89 d0 25 00 07 01 00 3d 00 04 00 00 75 12 81 ca 00
00

Cheers,
Hong-Gunn