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Questions tagged [linux-kernel]

The Linux kernel is the operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software.

The Linux kernel is the operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software.

The Linux kernel is released under the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2) (plus some firmware images with various non-free licenses[citation needed]), and is developed by contributors worldwide. Day-to-day development discussions take place on the Linux kernel mailing list.

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How do I make Linux recognize a new SATA /dev/sda drive I hot swapped in without rebooting?

Hot swapping out a failed SATA /dev/sda drive worked fine, but when I went to swap in a new drive, it wasn't recognized: [root@fs-2 ~]# tail -18 /var/log/messages May 5 16:54:35 fs-2 kernel: ata1: exception Emask 0x10 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x50000 action…
Philip Durbin
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Effects of configuring vm.overcommit_memory

My VPS web server running on CentOS 5.4 (Linux kernel 2.6.16.33-xenU) irregularly (like once a month give or take a few weeks) becomes unresponsive due to oom-killer kicking in. Monitoring of the server shows that it doesn't normally run out of…
dunxd
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Intentionally cause an I/O error in Linux?

Is there anyway, with Linux, to purposely cause a block device to report an I/O error, or possibly simulate one for testing purposes?
Dok
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What are the performance implications for millions of files in a modern file system?

Let's say we're using ext4 (with dir_index enabled) to host around 3M files (with an average of 750KB size) and we need to decide what folder scheme we're going to use. In the first solution, we apply a hash function to the file and use two levels…
Leandro Moreira
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Maximum number of files in one ext3 directory while still getting acceptable performance?

I have an application writing to an ext3 directory which over time has grown to roughly three million files. Needless to say, reading the file listing of this directory is unbearably slow. I don't blame ext3. The proper solution would have been to…
knorv
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Linux memory fragmentation

Is there a way to detect memory fragmentation on Linux? This is because on some long running servers I have noticed performance degradation and only after I restart process I see better performance. I noticed it more when using Linux huge page…
Raghu
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Why CPU spent time on IO(wa)?

I know wa (in top) measures the CPU time on waiting for I/O. Many articles say that. But I am confused that, based on 2 knowledge points: if a process uses a system call to read disk, the process is blocked. If a process is blocked, it is cannot be…
HUA Di
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Cause of page fragmentation on "large" server with xfs, 20 disks and Ceph

Any insight from someone with a bit of experience in the linux IO system would be helpful. Here is my story: Recently brought up a cluster of six Dell PowerEdge rx720xds to serve files via Ceph. These machines have 24 cores over two sockets with two…
pingu
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Difference between net.core.rmem_max and net.ipv4.tcp_rmem

What's the difference between net.core.rmem_max and the third value of net.ipv4.tcp_rmem? Which has the higher priority for tcp connections? For below two examples, what's the max buffer for tcp connections? Case 1: sysctl -w…
bydsky
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kswapd often uses 100% CPU when swap is in use

Most of the time when my computer starts to need swap, I see a massive spike in CPU usage (kswapd0 is consistently using 99%-100% CPU). According to top, the time is spent in sy (system/kernel) not wa (IO wait). I am running Linux 4.0.4-2-ARCH on a…
Zaz
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Linux kernel detecting wrong processor frequency

After a cold boot of a 6.0.8 Debian server (HP ProLiant), ntpd played havoc with system time: offset and jitter with respect to the usual and reliable reference time servers growing without limit. (Note that a twin identical server had no problem at…
Stefano M
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In CentOS 6.x, how can I upgrade to Kernel 3.4?

I have a server running CentOS 6.2 with kernel version 2.6.32, but I need to increase my application Performance. The Kernel Version 3.4 has x32abi which can improve the performance so i want to upgrade to 3.4 ? Is it possible? I tried downloading…
shiva
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CoreOS: tcpdump mysteriously solves network issue (excessive number of sockets used)

I've got a mystery for you today. We run a small, three node Elasticsearch cluster based on CoreOS (2023.5.0 / Linux 4.19.25-coreos) on Azure. Elasticsearch is run inside a docker container in host network mode. After running almost completely…
Stephan Klein
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How can I tune the initial TCP retransmit timeout?

The initial TCP RTO value of 3s is too long for most LAN-based applications. How can I tune it lower? Is there a sysctl?
claymation
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How to avoid downtime with linux?

Frequently software updates to Ubuntu require reboots (which can have side effects such as downtime). I see Ubuntu has https://www.ubuntu.com/livepatch which allows for kernel updates without reboots, however, this is a paid service. There is also…
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