Nodes run OOM from excessive lockdata utilization

Summary: Nodes run out of memory due to lockdata not releasing used memory.

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Symptoms

Nodes show signs of being Out of Memory (OOM) with "lockdata" shown to be the high memory utilization. 
Node may show performance degradation or even panic in severe cases. 
This is more likely to impact lower memory nodes, such as 16GB A200/2000 nodes, but may impact higher memory nodes. 

Example of an OOM message in the messages log, and lockdata shown as top consumer with over 3GB used--

2025-12-28T04:47:47.270517-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: Malloc Pigs:
2025-12-28T04:47:47.273671-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: Type                   InUse   MemUse   Requests
2025-12-28T04:47:47.275835-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: lockdata             3389051 3389051K 3716197873
2025-12-28T04:47:47.278575-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: 8kB dinodes           818152  670368K 29437430894
2025-12-28T04:47:47.281406-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: isi_hash               31612   92553K 16882805458
2025-12-28T04:47:47.283209-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: layout_hints          216930   67791K  506523261
2025-12-28T04:47:47.285766-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: iaddr_set             918679   57418K 76306136502
2025-12-28T04:47:47.289540-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: lbm super               8820   42195K  255485113
2025-12-28T04:47:47.291600-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: devbuf                 16994   37217K    2699236
2025-12-28T04:47:47.293557-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: bar_owner_vec259         301   32928K   11315960
2025-12-28T04:47:47.295987-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: newblk                     4   32768K   18925356
2025-12-28T04:47:47.299318-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: crc_vec200              7986   31867K  863150005
2025-12-28T04:47:47.301157-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: bam_alloc              34903   19302K 2500981635
2025-12-28T04:47:47.303032-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: ptr_llcb_map           99885   19299K 2274118968
2025-12-28T04:47:47.306277-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: inodedep                   4   16384K    7051517
2025-12-28T04:47:47.309572-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: ddvec84               216932   13621K 4596579001
2025-12-28T04:47:47.312698-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: sysctloid             216712   11835K     231785
2025-12-28T04:47:47.314522-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: Unshown bins account for 99614K
2025-12-28T04:47:47.316385-05:00 <0.4> EXAMPLE-24(id24) /boot/kernel.amd64/kernel: Total: 4634206K

Checking the nodes may show several with higher utilization--

martid32@elvis: /2026-01-12-003 $ grep lockdata */kern.malloc_pigs|sort -k3n
EXAMPLE-21/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata               57883   57883K   33140621
EXAMPLE-24/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata              179535  179535K  133252264
EXAMPLE-22/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata              191116  191116K  134601448
EXAMPLE-15/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata              201258  201258K  173115576
EXAMPLE-19/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata              212236  212236K  145973662
EXAMPLE-16/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata              223574  223574K  200913232
EXAMPLE-14/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata              270028  270028K  212437579
EXAMPLE-12/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata              810088  810088K  751687757
EXAMPLE-8/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata              814480  814480K  820272423
EXAMPLE-20/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata              861939  861939K  814769447
EXAMPLE-6/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata             1002016 1002016K 1010428656
EXAMPLE-11/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata             1043191 1043191K 1112512581
EXAMPLE-13/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata             1052161 1052161K 1236223736
EXAMPLE-10/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata             2287836 2287836K 2137296070
EXAMPLE-9/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata             2287836 2287836K 2130601482
EXAMPLE-5/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata             2288665 2288665K 2014785292
EXAMPLE-7/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata             2290701 2290701K 2020741030
EXAMPLE-4/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata             2291665 2291665K 2069854314
EXAMPLE-3/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata             2293574 2293574K 2431882220
EXAMPLE-17/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata             3554690 3554690K 3615677378
EXAMPLE-23/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata             3554842 3554842K 3785712414
EXAMPLE-2/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata             3566354 3566354K 3874955814
EXAMPLE-1/kern.malloc_pigs:lockdata             3567030 3567030K 3715078119

Cause

NFS per-file instance lockdata is a normal operation in the file system of file open operations. 
In some situations, it may not show to release consumed memory correctly. 
This can lead to 3GB+ of unreleased memory being retained, leading to over utilization of memory by lockdata. 

Resolution

A proactive reboot of the node or nodes should be performed to free up the memory from lockdata. 
Flushing of the cache has shown not to make any improvements. 

Checking for memory utilization on a live cluster the below command can be used--

isi_for_array -s sysctl kern.malloc_pigs |grep lockdata

 

Affected Products

Isilon, PowerScale, PowerScale OneFS
Article Properties
Article Number: 000418874
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 02 تموز 2026
Version:  5
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