Bug#1031520: maxima: triggers kernel error about memory allocation glitch

[Jörg-Volker Peetz]

Package: maxima
Version: 5.46.0-11
Severity: normal

Dear Camm Maguire,

calling maxima generates a kernel message:

kernel: __vm_enough_memory: 1 callbacks suppressed
kernel: __vm_enough_memory: pid: 13721, comm: maxima, no enough memory for the
allocation

The second line appears 10 times. I'm using a self-compiled upstream kernel.
Any idea?

Regards,
Jörg.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: bookworm/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (600, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (5, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 6.1.11 (SMP w/16 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=C.utf8, LC_CTYPE=C.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)

Versions of packages maxima depends on:
ii libc6 2.36-8
ii libedit2 3.1-20221030-2
ii libgmp10 2:6.2.1+dfsg1-1.1
ii libtirpc3 1.3.3+ds-1
ii libx11-6 2:1.8.3-3

Versions of packages maxima recommends:
ii gnuplot-qt [gnuplot-x11] 5.4.4+dfsg1-2+b2
ii maxima-share 5.46.0-11

Versions of packages maxima suggests:
ii maxima-doc 5.46.0-11
ii maxima-emacs 5.46.0-11
pn texmacs <none>
ii tk [wish] 8.6.11+1
pn xmaxima <none>

-- no debconf information

[Camm Maguire]

Greetings, and thanks for your report!

GCL based applications probe brk at runtime to determine an upper bound
for its permissible heap. Running under strace -f is usually helpful to
see if your kernel messages are correlated with this loop. To my
understanding, if brk triggers a 'no enough memory for the allocation'
condition, it should simply return an error code to the user space
process, and not generate any kernel level difficulties. brk just
reserves the memory, and does not actually allocate it until it is
written, so no oom machinery should be involved.

Take care,

--
Camm Maguire ca...@maguirefamily.org
==========================================================================
"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens." -- Baha'u'llah

[Jörg-Volker Peetz]

Thank you for looking into this and the explanations.

Meanwhile I found the kernel commit which introduced this warning:
https://lkml.kernel.org/lkml/ceefb6c0-fbed-447f...@huawei.com/t/

Maybe then, the kernel people are to blame and the bug could be closed.

Regards,
Jörg.