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Warning from free_init_pages with large initrd

Started bySitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com>
First post2016-09-24 18:10 +0200
Last post2016-09-26 08:50 +0200
Articles 11 — 4 participants

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  Warning from free_init_pages with large initrd Sitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com> - 2016-09-24 18:10 +0200
    Re: Warning from free_init_pages with large initrd "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com> - 2016-09-26 04:20 +0200
      Re: Warning from free_init_pages with large initrd Sitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com> - 2016-09-26 08:30 +0200
        Re: Warning from free_init_pages with large initrd "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com> - 2016-09-26 08:50 +0200
          Re: Warning from free_init_pages with large initrd Sitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com> - 2016-09-26 19:30 +0200
            Re: Warning from free_init_pages with large initrd Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org> - 2016-09-26 21:10 +0200
              Re: Warning from free_init_pages with large initrd Sitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com> - 2016-09-27 12:30 +0200
                Re: Warning from free_init_pages with large initrd "Richard W.M. Jones" <rjones@redhat.com> - 2016-09-27 15:00 +0200
                Re: Warning from free_init_pages with large initrd "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com> - 2016-09-27 20:50 +0200
                  Re: Warning from free_init_pages with large initrd Sitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com> - 2016-09-27 23:30 +0200
        Re: Warning from free_init_pages with large initrd "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com> - 2016-09-26 08:50 +0200

#1490671 — Warning from free_init_pages with large initrd

FromSitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com>
Date2016-09-24 18:10 +0200
SubjectWarning from free_init_pages with large initrd
Message-ID<skXGx-388-11@gated-at.bofh.it>
Hi,

While trying to PXE boot a Fedora LiveISO on VMware ESXi the kernel
throws the following warning:

[    0.955216] Unpacking initramfs...
[    5.391977] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[    5.391986] WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 1 at arch/x86/mm/init.c:671 free_init_pages+0x94/0xa0
[    5.391988] Modules linked in:
[    5.391992] CPU: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 4.8.0-0.rc7.git2.1.fc26.x86_64 #1
[    5.391993] Hardware name: VMware, Inc. VMware Virtual Platform/440BX Desktop Reference Platform, BIOS 6.00 09/30/2014
[    5.391995]  0000000000000286 00000000c1677634 ffff9d943abffd58 ffffffffb6467073
[    5.391999]  0000000000000000 0000000000000000 ffff9d943abffd98 ffffffffb60ae7ab
[    5.392001]  0000029fb71cab9d ffff9d9300000000 ffff9d9380000000 ffff9d9329861000
[    5.392003] Call Trace:
[    5.392008]  [<ffffffffb6467073>] dump_stack+0x86/0xc3
[    5.392020]  [<ffffffffb60ae7ab>] __warn+0xcb/0xf0
[    5.392022]  [<ffffffffb60ae8dd>] warn_slowpath_null+0x1d/0x20
[    5.392024]  [<ffffffffb606b094>] free_init_pages+0x94/0xa0
[    5.392027]  [<ffffffffb71cabe3>] ? unpack_to_rootfs+0x29d/0x29d
[    5.392039]  [<ffffffffb71c88cd>] ? set_debug_rodata+0x12/0x12
[    5.392042]  [<ffffffffb71e6aee>] free_initrd_mem+0x21/0x23
[    5.392044]  [<ffffffffb71cacc8>] populate_rootfs+0xe5/0x105
[    5.392046]  [<ffffffffb6002190>] do_one_initcall+0x50/0x180
[    5.392048]  [<ffffffffb71c88cd>] ? set_debug_rodata+0x12/0x12
[    5.392049]  [<ffffffffb71c923b>] kernel_init_freeable+0x200/0x29c
[    5.392053]  [<ffffffffb68e6b4e>] kernel_init+0xe/0x100
[    5.392055]  [<ffffffffb68f7b2f>] ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x40
[    5.392056]  [<ffffffffb68e6b40>] ? rest_init+0x140/0x140
[    5.392062] ---[ end trace 0fbf5e487fcf7e56 ]---
[    6.572994] Freeing initrd memory: 1416828K (ffff9d9329861000 - ffff9d9380000000)

The initrd is big because it holds all the files in the ISO (see
https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/wiki/HowToPxeAnyLiveCd for how it was
made). The issue was originally filed on
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1274966 but was usually
against older kernels...

-- 
Sitsofe | http://sucs.org/~sits/

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#1491039

From"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Date2016-09-26 04:20 +0200
Message-ID<sltGp-6hS-1@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#1490671
On 09/24/16 08:32, Sitsofe Wheeler wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> While trying to PXE boot a Fedora LiveISO on VMware ESXi the kernel
> throws the following warning:
> 
[...]
> 
> The initrd is big because it holds all the files in the ISO (see
> https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/wiki/HowToPxeAnyLiveCd for how it was
> made). The issue was originally filed on
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1274966 but was usually
> against older kernels...
> 

How big is big?

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#1491082

FromSitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com>
Date2016-09-26 08:30 +0200
Message-ID<slxAm-h3-7@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#1491039
On 26 September 2016 at 03:14, H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:
> On 09/24/16 08:32, Sitsofe Wheeler wrote:
>>
>> While trying to PXE boot a Fedora LiveISO on VMware ESXi the kernel
>> throws the following warning:
>>
> [...]
>>
>> The initrd is big because it holds all the files in the ISO (see
>> https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/wiki/HowToPxeAnyLiveCd for how it was
>> made). The issue was originally filed on
>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1274966 but was usually
>> against older kernels...
>
> How big is big?

The one that matches that backtrace is 1385 Mbytes and was made from a
Fedora rawhide ISO. Here are some sizes in megabytes from different
versions of Fedora:
960   20/initrd0.img
1416 21/initrd0.img
1379 22/initrd0.img
1430 23/initrd0.img
1492 24/initrd.img

-- 
Sitsofe | http://sucs.org/~sits/

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#1491094

From"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Date2016-09-26 08:50 +0200
Message-ID<slxTI-rD-3@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#1491082
On September 25, 2016 11:22:04 PM PDT, Sitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 26 September 2016 at 03:14, H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:
>> On 09/24/16 08:32, Sitsofe Wheeler wrote:
>>>
>>> While trying to PXE boot a Fedora LiveISO on VMware ESXi the kernel
>>> throws the following warning:
>>>
>> [...]
>>>
>>> The initrd is big because it holds all the files in the ISO (see
>>> https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/wiki/HowToPxeAnyLiveCd for how it
>was
>>> made). The issue was originally filed on
>>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1274966 but was usually
>>> against older kernels...
>>
>> How big is big?
>
>The one that matches that backtrace is 1385 Mbytes and was made from a
>Fedora rawhide ISO. Here are some sizes in megabytes from different
>versions of Fedora:
>960   20/initrd0.img
>1416 21/initrd0.img
>1379 22/initrd0.img
>1430 23/initrd0.img
>1492 24/initrd.img

Also: compressed or uncompressed (if it makes a difference?)
-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse brevity and formatting.

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#1491457

FromSitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com>
Date2016-09-26 19:30 +0200
Message-ID<slHT3-6G2-19@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#1491094
On 26 September 2016 at 07:47, H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:
> On September 25, 2016 11:22:04 PM PDT, Sitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com> wrote:
>>On 26 September 2016 at 03:14, H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:
>>> On 09/24/16 08:32, Sitsofe Wheeler wrote:
>>>>
>>>> While trying to PXE boot a Fedora LiveISO on VMware ESXi the kernel
>>>> throws the following warning:
>>>>
>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>> The initrd is big because it holds all the files in the ISO (see
>>>> https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/wiki/HowToPxeAnyLiveCd for how it
>>was
>>>> made).
>>>
>>> How big is big?
>>
>>The one that matches that backtrace is 1385 Mbytes and was made from a
>>Fedora rawhide ISO. Here are some sizes in megabytes from different
>>versions of Fedora:
>>960   20/initrd0.img
>>1416 21/initrd0.img
>>1379 22/initrd0.img
>>1430 23/initrd0.img
>>1492 24/initrd.img

> And they all fail?
From at least 23 onwards they all continue to boot but give the
previously mentioned warning in dmesg output.

> Also, is this BIOS or EFI?
Booting from BIOS, not EFI.

> Also: compressed or uncompressed (if it makes a difference?)

file reports the following
20 initrd starts with a gzip header
21-23 initrds start with a cpio header
24 and rawhide initrd starts with an xz header

Looking at livecd-iso-to-pxeboot it seems that the CD's contents is
turned into a gzip'd cpio and then concatenated on the end of the
usual initrd...

-- 
Sitsofe | http://sucs.org/~sits/

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#1491514

FromRandy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Date2016-09-26 21:10 +0200
Message-ID<slJrP-7Kq-15@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#1491457
On 09/26/16 10:26, Sitsofe Wheeler wrote:
> On 26 September 2016 at 07:47, H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:
>> On September 25, 2016 11:22:04 PM PDT, Sitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 26 September 2016 at 03:14, H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:
>>>> On 09/24/16 08:32, Sitsofe Wheeler wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> While trying to PXE boot a Fedora LiveISO on VMware ESXi the kernel
>>>>> throws the following warning:
>>>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>>
>>>>> The initrd is big because it holds all the files in the ISO (see
>>>>> https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/wiki/HowToPxeAnyLiveCd for how it
>>> was
>>>>> made).
>>>>
>>>> How big is big?
>>>
>>> The one that matches that backtrace is 1385 Mbytes and was made from a
>>> Fedora rawhide ISO. Here are some sizes in megabytes from different
>>> versions of Fedora:
>>> 960   20/initrd0.img
>>> 1416 21/initrd0.img
>>> 1379 22/initrd0.img
>>> 1430 23/initrd0.img
>>> 1492 24/initrd.img
> 
>> And they all fail?
> From at least 23 onwards they all continue to boot but give the
> previously mentioned warning in dmesg output.
> 
>> Also, is this BIOS or EFI?
> Booting from BIOS, not EFI.
> 
>> Also: compressed or uncompressed (if it makes a difference?)
> 
> file reports the following
> 20 initrd starts with a gzip header
> 21-23 initrds start with a cpio header
> 24 and rawhide initrd starts with an xz header
> 
> Looking at livecd-iso-to-pxeboot it seems that the CD's contents is
> turned into a gzip'd cpio and then concatenated on the end of the
> usual initrd...
> 

but the warning in free_init_pages() is about alignment, not size...
Maybe the concatenation is bad?

-- 
~Randy

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#1491803

FromSitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com>
Date2016-09-27 12:30 +0200
Message-ID<slXO9-8mf-5@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#1491514
(See http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/2534175 for
the history of this thread )

On 26 September 2016 at 20:00, Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org> wrote:
>
> but the warning in free_init_pages() is about alignment, not size...
> Maybe the concatenation is bad?

What would l have to pull apart to be able to tell?

Having said that I've just noticed that newer versions of the script
concatenate an ISO to the initrd (rather than another cpio) -
https://github.com/rhinstaller/livecd-tools/commit/8067be50907da9461e442c11a664c89e066ccac6#diff-88c69e43bb69726c532af3a136cc50e8
. Unfortunately after rebuilding the initrd with the
livecd-iso-to-pxeboot version from Fedora 24 the warning persists.
CC'ing a few of the tool's authors on this email.

-- 
Sitsofe | http://sucs.org/~sits/

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#1491886

From"Richard W.M. Jones" <rjones@redhat.com>
Date2016-09-27 15:00 +0200
Message-ID<sm09j-1bo-1@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#1491803
On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 11:20:06AM +0100, Sitsofe Wheeler wrote:
> (See http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/2534175 for
> the history of this thread )
> 
> On 26 September 2016 at 20:00, Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org> wrote:
> >
> > but the warning in free_init_pages() is about alignment, not size...
> > Maybe the concatenation is bad?
> 
> What would l have to pull apart to be able to tell?
> 
> Having said that I've just noticed that newer versions of the script
> concatenate an ISO to the initrd (rather than another cpio) -
> https://github.com/rhinstaller/livecd-tools/commit/8067be50907da9461e442c11a664c89e066ccac6#diff-88c69e43bb69726c532af3a136cc50e8
> . Unfortunately after rebuilding the initrd with the
> livecd-iso-to-pxeboot version from Fedora 24 the warning persists.
> CC'ing a few of the tool's authors on this email.

I would just comment that I wrote livecd-iso-to-pxeboot for
a specific purpose -- virt-p2v -- where the size of the ISO
rarely exceeded around 100-200 MB, which is large for an initramfs,
but about an order of magnitude smaller than what you are trying.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
Read my programming and virtualization blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com
virt-top is 'top' for virtual machines.  Tiny program with many
powerful monitoring features, net stats, disk stats, logging, etc.
http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-top

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#1492096

From"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Date2016-09-27 20:50 +0200
Message-ID<sm5C1-4Dm-15@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#1491803
On September 27, 2016 3:20:06 AM PDT, Sitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com> wrote:
>(See http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/2534175 for
>the history of this thread )
>
>On 26 September 2016 at 20:00, Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
>wrote:
>>
>> but the warning in free_init_pages() is about alignment, not size...
>> Maybe the concatenation is bad?
>
>What would l have to pull apart to be able to tell?
>
>Having said that I've just noticed that newer versions of the script
>concatenate an ISO to the initrd (rather than another cpio) -
>https://github.com/rhinstaller/livecd-tools/commit/8067be50907da9461e442c11a664c89e066ccac6#diff-88c69e43bb69726c532af3a136cc50e8
>. Unfortunately after rebuilding the initrd with the
>livecd-iso-to-pxeboot version from Fedora 24 the warning persists.
>CC'ing a few of the tool's authors on this email.

This really doesn't seem like a good approach, and certainly may cause memory exhaustion at boot time.  Still would be good to track down the problem.

Overall the idea of downloading the whole shebang in the initial TFTP transaction ID a really bad idea.  TFTP is slow and unreliable, and the PXE ROMs are often complete crap in terms of quality.  It would be way better to bring up a small initramfs and then fetch the rest using http or a similar protocol from the very high quality Linux TCP stack.  As far as I know, Fedora has supported this mode for *ages*.
-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse brevity and formatting.

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#1492183

FromSitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com>
Date2016-09-27 23:30 +0200
Message-ID<sm86S-6hq-27@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#1492096
On 27 September 2016 at 19:36, H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:
> On September 27, 2016 3:20:06 AM PDT, Sitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com> wrote:
>>(See http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/2534175 for
>>the history of this thread )
>>
>>On 26 September 2016 at 20:00, Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
>>wrote:
>>>
>>> but the warning in free_init_pages() is about alignment, not size...
>>> Maybe the concatenation is bad?
>>
>>What would l have to pull apart to be able to tell?
>>
>>Having said that I've just noticed that newer versions of the script
>>concatenate an ISO to the initrd (rather than another cpio) -
>>https://github.com/rhinstaller/livecd-tools/commit/8067be50907da9461e442c11a664c89e066ccac6#diff-88c69e43bb69726c532af3a136cc50e8
>>. Unfortunately after rebuilding the initrd with the
>>livecd-iso-to-pxeboot version from Fedora 24 the warning persists.
>>CC'ing a few of the tool's authors on this email.
>
> This really doesn't seem like a good approach, and certainly may cause memory exhaustion at boot time.  Still would be good to track down the problem.
>
> Overall the idea of downloading the whole shebang in the initial TFTP transaction ID a really bad idea.  TFTP is slow and unreliable, and the PXE ROMs are often complete crap in terms of quality.  It would be way better to bring up a small initramfs and then fetch the rest using http or a similar protocol from the very high quality Linux TCP stack.  As far as I know, Fedora has supported this mode for *ages*.

I wouldn't mind tracking down the problem too but I admit I don't know
where to start on this alignment issue.

As for the process, it can be excruciating slow and can cause memory
exhaustion but the initrd and vmlinuz are actually downloaded over
HTTP courtesy of iPXE (so grabbing 1GByte happens in under a minute
over HTTP) and these days machines have many gigabytes of memory so it
actually works quite well once booted...

I was going to say that Fedora doesn't allow PXE booting of its live
images (I know it always supported something for server installs) but
I've just come across this
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1317780 so perhaps there's
a another route to take in addition to this next time round...

-- 
Sitsofe | http://sucs.org/~sits/

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#1491095

From"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Date2016-09-26 08:50 +0200
Message-ID<slxTI-rD-1@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#1491082
On September 25, 2016 11:22:04 PM PDT, Sitsofe Wheeler <sitsofe@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 26 September 2016 at 03:14, H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:
>> On 09/24/16 08:32, Sitsofe Wheeler wrote:
>>>
>>> While trying to PXE boot a Fedora LiveISO on VMware ESXi the kernel
>>> throws the following warning:
>>>
>> [...]
>>>
>>> The initrd is big because it holds all the files in the ISO (see
>>> https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/wiki/HowToPxeAnyLiveCd for how it
>was
>>> made). The issue was originally filed on
>>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1274966 but was usually
>>> against older kernels...
>>
>> How big is big?
>
>The one that matches that backtrace is 1385 Mbytes and was made from a
>Fedora rawhide ISO. Here are some sizes in megabytes from different
>versions of Fedora:
>960   20/initrd0.img
>1416 21/initrd0.img
>1379 22/initrd0.img
>1430 23/initrd0.img
>1492 24/initrd.img

And they all fail?

Also, is this BIOS or EFI?

When loading under BIOS there is currently a 2 GB limit with most loaders; it would have been 4 GB except that Grub had a bug (sigh.)
-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse brevity and formatting.

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