xen-image-create fails with kernel panic

After some more research and using the latest [..]-11 kernel I found out that the error is most likely due to excessive memory usage.
When running xen-create-image all my system memory gets used (> 1GB). When there is no more memory left the pdflush process starts to run, crashes and the kernel hangs.
I have tested xen-tools 3.7 and the error also exists in there. So it must be an ubuntu kernel problem.

Hello,

Please attach the results of cat /proc/cpuinfo and the output of free -m.

Thanks
chuck

It now comes with another error, possibly related, so I post it here.
Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: Oops: 0000 [#1]

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: SMP

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: CPU: 1

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: EIP: 0061:[block_invalidatepage+51/173] Not tainted VLI

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: EFLAGS: 00210217 (2.6.22-11-xen #1)

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: EIP is at block_invalidatepage+0x33/0xad

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: eax: ffffffff ebx: 00100100 ecx: 00000002 edx: c1b9d294

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: esi: c167dbe0 edi: c1b9d294 ebp: ffffffff esp: c5d7de68

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: ds: 007b es: 007b fs: 00d8 gs: 0033 ss: 0069

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: Process umount (pid: 13614, ti=c5d7c000 task=c5d88ab0 task.ti=c5d7c000)

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: Stack: 00000000 00100100 c0183948 00003586 00000002 0000028a c014d262 c167dbe0

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: c014d523 c167dbe0 c014d5de 0000000e 0058f4d8 00000001 00000000 00000000

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: c158f4d8 00000000 ffffffff 0000000e 00000000 c1bb3940 c1bb37a0 c167dbe0

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: Call Trace:

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: [block_invalidatepage+0/173] block_invalidatepage+0x0/0xad

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: [do_invalidatepage+22/24] do_invalidatepage+0x16/0x18

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: [truncate_complete_page+36/63] truncate_complete_page+0x24/0x3f

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: [truncate_inode_pages_range+160/603] truncate_inode_pages_range+0xa0/0x25b

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: [truncate_inode_pages+23/26] truncate_inode_pages+0x17/0x1a

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: [__blkdev_put+68/259] __blkdev_put+0x44/0x103

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: [deactivate_super+82/101] deactivate_super+0x52/0x65

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: [sys_umount+498/538] sys_umount+0x1f2/0x21a

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: [do_page_fault+1913/2976] do_page_fault+0x779/0xba0

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: [unmap_region+239/247] unmap_region+0xef/0xf7

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: [sys_stat64+15/35] sys_stat64+0xf/0x23

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:03 2007 ...
TSA kernel: [remove_vma+54/59] remove_vma+0x36/0...

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:46 2007 ...
TSA kernel: Bad page state in process 'pdflush'

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:46 2007 ...
TSA kernel: page:c1b3d1c0 flags:0x00000004 mapping:00000000 mapcount:0 count:1

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:46 2007 ...
TSA kernel: Trying to fix it up, but a reboot is needed

Message from syslogd@TSA at Wed Sep 12 19:41:46 2007 ...
TSA kernel: Backtrace:

I think I get something similar during xen-image-create debootstrap :

Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 0000001c
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: printing eip:
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: ee217289
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: 06c3e000 -> *pde = 00000000:3886c001
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: 0646c000 -> *pme = 00000000:00000000
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: Oops: 0000 [#1]
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: SMP
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: Modules linked in: arc4 ecb blkcipher ieee80211_crypt_wep af_packet i915 drm binfmt_misc rfcomm l2cap bluetooth bridge ppdev video sbs battery button dock container ac ext2 sbp2 parport_pc lp parport snd_hda_intel snd_pcm_oss snd_mixer_oss snd_pcm snd_seq_dummy snd_seq_oss snd_seq_midi snd_rawmidi ipv6 mss_core ipw3945 pcmcia snd_seq_midi_event firewire_ohci firewire_core snd_seq ieee80211 ieee80211_crypt iTCO_wdt iTCO_vendor_support firmware_class crc_itu_t sdhci mmc_core snd_timer snd_seq_device yenta_socket rsrc_nonstatic pcmcia_core intel_agp agpgart serio_raw tsdev snd soundcore snd_page_alloc ext3 jbd mbcache sg sr_mod cdrom sd_mod piix generic ide_core ohci1394 ieee1394 ata_piix libata scsi_mod r8169 ehci_hcd uhci_hcd usbcore dm_mirror dm_snapshot dm_mod thermal processor fan fuse apparmor commoncap
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: CPU: 0
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: EIP: 0061:[<ee217289>] Not tainted VLI
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: EFLAGS: 00010203 (2.6.22-12-xen #1)
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: EIP is at walk_page_buffers+0x18/0x64 [ext3]
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: eax: 00000000 ebx: fffffffc ecx: fffffffd edx: 00000018
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: esi: c1aba374 edi: ffffffff ebp: 00000018 esp: c8819e10
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: ds: 007b es: 007b fs: 00d8 gs: 0000 ss: 0069
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: Process pdflush (pid: 5130, ti=c8818000 task=e2f43030 task.ti=c8818000)
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: Stack: 00000000 c0ca7810 c1ab9a80 c1aba374 c0ca7810 c0ca7810 ee219ef2 00001000
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: 00000000 ee2172d5 c1ab9a00 00000000 c8819f74 e63f2ed4 00000003 00000000
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: c8819f74 c014b410 c1ab9a80 c014b77f 00000000 0000000e c014b408 e63f2ed4
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: Call Trace:
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: [<ee219ef2>] ext3_ordered_writepage+0xcc/0x189 [ext3]
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: [<ee2172d5>] bget_one+0x0/0x7 [ext3]
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: [__writepage+8/33] __writepage+0x8/0x21
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: [write_cache_pages+364/635] write_cache_pages+0x16c/0x27b
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: [__writepage+0/33] __writepage+0x0/0x21
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: [generic_writepages+31/38] generic_writepages+0x1f/0x26
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: [do_writepages+41/48] do_writepages+0x29/0x30
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: [__writeback_single_inode+411/779] __writeback_single_inode+0x19b/0x30b
Sep 25 19:18:02 discordance kernel: [__writeback_single_i...

I have the same problem here, but on a rather unusual system:

The system is Debian etch, but as the NIC is not supported with the stock debian kernel, and we needed Xen on the host, I built the Ubuntu xen kernel for the machine.
While creating a Domain with xen-tools, we ran into this problem. Then I built xen-3.1.0 from xensource, but the problem persists. Sadly, the box is a root server located at our ISP, so I cannot reboot it until tomorrow, and testing possibilites are limited.

Ciao

Martin

Same problem here, after the memory get full and the swap get full I have simillar kernel oops:

xen-3.2, xen-hypervisor-3.2, python-xen-3.2 = 3.2.0-0ubuntu10
linux-image-2.6.22-14-xen = 2.6.22-14.46

While I create the xen image with the command:

xen-create-image --size=2Gb --swap=128Mb --dhcp --dir=/home/xen --hostname=vm01.my.flat

And I add/remove this line in my /etc/modules file, same error:

loop loop_max=255

Tell me if you need something else.

Beginning with the Hardy Heron 8.04 development cycle, all open Ubuntu kernel bugs need to be reported against the "linux" kernel package. We are automatically migrating this bug to the new "linux" package. However, development has already began for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. It would be helpful if you could test the upcoming release and verify if this is still an issue - http://www.ubuntu.com/testing . If the issue still exists, please update this report by changing the Status of the "linux" task from "Incomplete" to "New". We appreciate your patience and understanding as we make this transition. Thanks!

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!