NOTICE: getcpages - waiting for 1 contiguous pages

[Derek E. Terveer]

My machine has been crashing at least once per day with the following panic
which is preceded by a number of NOTICEs.  I am not sure what the getcpages
message indicates other than the obvious; that somewhere the kernel required
at least one page of contiguous "memory".  And because it was in swap (and
swapchunk) when it died, i presume that the swapper paniced when it couldn't
swap in? a page of memory from the swap device?  I say "in" because I have 16MB
of swap space allocated and i have never seen that dip below about 10MB
available, even with X-windows running and lots of stuff going on.  So, i find
it hard to believe that Esix had trouble swapping out to the swap area on disk.
That doesn't make much sense.  But, i didn't have a lot of processes running;
X-windows with some windows, vi, a compressed tape backup, news batching.  I
realize that 8MB of primary memory isn't a lot (and i intend to obtain more
asap), but i kind of hoped that the system would simply get slower and page
more of those 4k chunks in and out to accomplish its tasks instead of crashing.
Am i deluded in this expectation?

Also, on a related subject, if i am in x-windows these NOTICEs don't appear on
any window that is visible from within X-windows and so i am unaware of the
problems until after the panic and i have run crash after rebooting.  Is there
any way of getting an xterm to record the messages that go to the console?
"Xterm -help" says that "xterm -C" is supposed to put the xterm into console
mode, but "xterm -C" returns "bad command line option."  I have tried various
other possibilities like -c, -console, etc., with no luck.  Sigh...


NOTICE: getcpages - waiting for 1 contiguous pages

total real mem  = 7995392
total avail mem = 5586944

ESIX System 5.3.2 Rev.D

NOTICE: getcpages - waiting for 1 contiguous pages

NOTICE: getcpages - waiting for 1 contiguous pages

NOTICE: getcpages - waiting for 1 contiguous pages

NOTICE: getcpages - waiting for 1 contiguous pages

NOTICE: getcpages - waiting for 1 contiguous pages

NOTICE: getcpages - waiting for 1 contiguous pages
PANIC:
cr0 0xFFFFFFED     cr2  0x0000000C     cr3 0x00002000     tlb  0xFFFFF120
ss  0x00000001     uesp 0x00000001     efl 0x00010206     ipl  0x00000006
cs  0x00000158     eip  0xD007ED54     err 0x00000000     trap 0x0000000E
eax 0x00000000     ecx  0xFFFFFFFF     edx 0x00000021     ebx  0x00000001
esp 0xE0000F00     ebp  0xE0000F30     esi 0x00000000     edi  0xD023AA00
ds  0x00000160     es   0x00000160     fs  0x00000000     gs   0x00000000

PANIC: Kernel mode trap. Type 0x0000000E
Trying to dump 1952 Pages
..........

Panic String: Kernel mode trap. Type 0x%x

Kernel Trap. Kernel Registers saved at e0000ed0
ERR=0, TRAPNO=14
cs:eip=0158:d007ed54 Flags=10206
ds = 0160   es = 0160   fs = 0000   gs = 0000
esi= 00000000   edi= d023aa00   ebp= e0000f30   esp= e0000f00
eax= 00000000   ebx= 00000001   ecx= ffffffff   edx= 00000021

Kernel Stack before Trap:
STKADDR   FRAMEPTR  FUNCTION  POSSIBLE ARGUMENTS
e0000f00  e0000f30  swap     (d023aa00,1,0,0)
e0000f38  e0000f6c  swapchun (d01fbad8,0,c03fe020,d01fbad8)
e0000f74  e0000f84  addspg   (d01fbad8,c03fe020,0,0)
e0000f8c  e0000fe0  getpages (d01fbad8,0,0,0)
e0000fe8  e0000ff8  vhand    (43b95c,0,0,0)
-- 
Derek "Tigger" Terveer	det at hawkmoon.MN.ORG -- U of MN Women's Lax
I am the way and the truth and the light, I know all the answers; don't need
your advice.  -- "I am the way and the truth and the light" -- The Legendary Pink Dots