Re: kernel: request_module[net-pf-10]: fork failed, errno 11

[Athanasius <Athanasius@miggy.org.uk>]

On Sun, Jun 09, 2002 at 06:54:14PM +0100, Athanasius wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 08, 2002 at 08:22:05PM +1000, Keith Owens wrote:
> > On Sat, 8 Jun 2002 10:43:07 +0100, 
> > Athanasius <link@gurus.tf> wrote:
> > >  I'm seeing a lot of:
> > >
> > >	kernel: request_module[net-pf-10]: fork failed, errno 11
> [snip]
> > 
> > That error is occurring before modprobe has run, long before it gets to
> > modules.conf.  You need to find out why fork() for modprobe on your
> > system is failing with EAGAIN.  Have you reached the limit on the
> > number of tasks?
> 
>    Not as far as I can tell.  It would be easier to tell if 'sa' (BSD
> process accounting) carried useful information like timestamps per
> process or even just their PIDs (to match to a *.* syslog'd file).

  Ok, a little more investigation:

root@bowl:/sbin# cat modprobe-logging 
#!/bin/sh

echo "`date` `ps axh | wc -l`: $@" >> /var/log/modprobe.log
exec /sbin/modprobe $@
root@bowl:/sbin# cat /proc/sys/kernel/modprobe 
/sbin/modprobe-logging

In /var/log/kern.log:
Jun 11 14:36:58 bowl kernel: request_module[net-pf-10]: fork failed, errno 11

And in /var/log/modprobe.log:

Tue Jun 11 14:36:41 BST 2002     229: -s -k -- net-pf-10
Tue Jun 11 14:36:58 BST 2002     228: -s -k -- net-pf-10
Tue Jun 11 14:36:58 BST 2002     227: -s -k -- net-pf-10
Tue Jun 11 14:37:02 BST 2002     227: -s -k -- net-pf-10

/proc/sys/kernel/threads-max is 4095.

  So, nowhere near threads-max (if ps axh is a good test of that),
certainly not processes-wise.  Yet at times the request_module is
failing anyway.  It would seem that an immediate followup attempt works.
Yup, just had another instance:

Jun 11 14:40:11 bowl kernel: request_module[net-pf-10]: fork failed, errno 11
Tue Jun 11 14:40:07 BST 2002     235: -s -k -- net-pf-10
Tue Jun 11 14:40:11 BST 2002     229: -s -k -- net-pf-10
Tue Jun 11 14:40:11 BST 2002     230: -s -k -- net-pf-10
Tue Jun 11 14:40:42 BST 2002     227: -s -k -- net-pf-10

  Note that ulimit -u is 256, but that's per login instance normally and
I'd not have thought a kernel thread goes through PAM anyway...

-Ath
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