shared memory problem. SOS.

[Anu Mathew]

Hi.

We have two identical L class servers, serving production and development roles,running sybase. On one server, if the sybase is up, it will not let me run ignite or sam in the X-windows mode. (It lets me run gpm, though.) It gives the following error:

sam: FATAL ERROR: Unable to load library "/usr/lib/Motif1.2_R6/./libXm.3": Not enough space

On the other hand, if they try to start sybase when I am running either sam or ignite (in the X-windows), it fails giving the following error:

00: 00000:00000:2001/06/11 16:11:11.07 kernel os_create_region: can't allocate 742694912 bytes
00: 00000:00000:2001/06/11 16:11:11.07 kernel kbcreate: couldn't create server region 1.
00: 00000:00000:2001/06/11 16:11:11.07 kernel kistartup: could not create shared memory

Interestingly, the prod. box which is at the same patch level and kernel parameters, is giving no such errors/problems. It works perfectly alright. I have cross checked the kernel parameters from both the servers, could not find any difference. I have 4 GB ram, 8 GB swap and two processors.

If any one can shed some light, it will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your reply and valuable time,

Regards

Anu Mathew

[Bill Hassell]

Looks like you are hitting a kernel fence such as maxdsiz. Make sure maxdsiz is plenty large (ie, 900 megs) so you won't hit this runaway program limit. Additionally, the amount of virtual memory should be checked. If swapmem_on is 1, then virtual memory is about 75% RAM plus all swap space. If swapmem_on is 0, then swap space is all tou have to run programs. Use swapinfo -tm to check.

sam and swinstall (and other dual interface programs) use a lot more RAM in the GUI mode. For shared memory programs, the problem, especially for 32-bit programs, is orphan segments and fragmentation. Use ipcs -mop to look for zero NATTCH and seg addr = 0 as these segments can be released with ipcs.

[Anu Mathew]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. It was not the Kernel parameters, but two run-away processes midaemon and mib2agt creating the pain. Thanks for your input, since it helped me in a certain way to address the issue.

Regards

Anu Mathew