look what I've got on the PDC earlier on today: --- Oct 3 15:23:56 roky2 kernel: __alloc_pages: 0-order allocation failed (gfp=0x1d2/0) from c012b7a5 Oct 3 15:23:56 roky2 kernel: VM: killing process smbd Oct 3 15:24:26 roky2 kernel: __alloc_pages: 0-order allocation failed (gfp=0x1d2/0) from c0123f51 Oct 3 15:24:26 roky2 kernel: __alloc_pages: 0-order allocation failed (gfp=0x1d2/0) from c012b7a5 Oct 3 15:24:26 roky2 kernel: __alloc_pages: 0-order allocation failed (gfp=0x1d2/0) from c0123f51 Oct 3 15:24:27 roky2 kernel: __alloc_pages: 0-order allocation failed (gfp=0x1d2/0) from c0123f51 Oct 3 15:24:27 roky2 kernel: VM: killing process nmbd Oct 3 15:24:27 roky2 kernel: __alloc_pages: 0-order allocation failed (gfp=0x1d2/0) from c012b7a5 Oct 3 15:24:27 roky2 kernel: VM: killing process smbd Oct 3 15:24:27 roky2 kernel: __alloc_pages: 0-order allocation failed (gfp=0x1d2/0) from c012b7a5 Oct 3 15:24:27 roky2 kernel: __alloc_pages: 0-order allocation failed (gfp=0xf0/0) from c0133f8c Oct 3 15:24:27 roky2 kernel: __alloc_pages: 0-order allocation failed (gfp=0x1d2/0) from c012b7a5 --- this is redhat 7.1 with updates, samba 2.2.1a, 256MB RAM, 280MB swap; earlier this week I upgraded the kernel to 2.4.10 (linus tree); I red about some changes in the VM in the last kernel, but I didn't expected to hit me that hard...the last kernel I had, 2.4.7, worked fine for about 60 days with the same samba and no restart; could that be a running away smbd ? when I arrived at the console it already killed some processes, and swap usage was about 6 megs, nmbd wasn't running, so I restarted samba and I was back on the track again... correct me if I'm wrong, the VM starts killing processes when it has no swap left...but I have 280MB of it! comments are wellcome! (I need more educated opinions on this) dragos