[CentOS] CENTOS 5.5 X86 continue get "out of memory" error?????

Thu Nov 25 00:13:33 UTC 2010
John R Pierce <pierce at hogranch.com>

On 11/24/10 3:59 PM, mcclnx mcc wrote:
> we just installed CENTOS 5.5 X86 (32 bits) on DELL server.  After installed we also apply lated O.S. patches.
>
> This server have 64 GB RAM and run "2.6.18-194.26.1.el5PAE #1 SMP ".  when I doing "cp", "mv". "ftp", ....  it continue "kill" my process and pop up "out of memory" on /var/log/messages:
>
> ...
>
> any one know why?
>
> Is CENTOS X86 5..5 really NOT stable version?

no, using 32 bit PAE with 64GB of memory means your page tables are 
using ALL of the available 1GB kernel address space available.
the 32 bit kernel chokes itself under these extreme conditions.   this 
is an architectural feature of the Intel x86, the "solution" is 64 bit 
mode where the page tables and kernel and a user process don't all have 
to fit into 4GB of address space.