PowerFlex: SDS panics due to memory allocation failures - mos_AllocPageAlignedOrPanic

Summary: SDS process can panic (or keep panicking continuously) due to memory allocation failures.

This article applies to This article does not apply to This article is not tied to any specific product. Not all product versions are identified in this article.

Symptoms

Either insufficient memory can cause this problem on the SDS host (i.e. SVM memory assignment) or due to Operating System configuration.

The SDS process panics with the following backtrace:

01/12 22:26:55.091827 Panic in file /data/build/workspace/ScaleIO-SLES12-2/src/mos/usr/mos_utils.c, line 235, function mos_AllocPageAlignedOrPanic, PID 11191.Panic Expression pMem != ((void *)0) .
/opt/emc/scaleio/sds/bin/sds-2.6.0.133(mosDbg_PanicPrepare+0x11d) [0x4f713d]
/opt/emc/scaleio/sds/bin/sds-2.6.0.133(mos_AllocPageAlignedOrPanic+0x2d) [0x4fa95e]
/opt/emc/scaleio/sds/bin/sds-2.6.0.133(stmp_Allocate+0x110) [0x49c063]
/opt/emc/scaleio/sds/bin/sds-2.6.0.133(phyToothMap_HardenIntern+0x37b) [0x46edcf]
/opt/emc/scaleio/sds/bin/sds-2.6.0.133(phyToothMap_HardenAll+0x39) [0x46f5a3]
/opt/emc/scaleio/sds/bin/sds-2.6.0.133(phyDev_HardenCombArr+0x34) [0x464a31]
/opt/emc/scaleio/sds/bin/sds-2.6.0.133(phyComb_ReadTooth+0x6a) [0x4b2b59]
/opt/emc/scaleio/sds/bin/sds-2.6.0.133(raidMigrate_Start+0x5f0) [0x4bb9e2]
/opt/emc/scaleio/sds/bin/sds-2.6.0.133(raidSyncPool_StartJob+0x1cf) [0x489e7f]
/opt/emc/scaleio/sds/bin/sds-2.6.0.133() [0x50d008]

Depending on the OS settings, OOM (Out-of-memory) errors can be observed in the messages file.

 

Impact

This behavior can trigger a DATA_DEGRADED/DATA_FAILURE situation.

Cause

Insufficient memory on the SDS host In the vSphere environment please checks if there is enough RAM assigned to an SVM and if it is reserved. If yes, check memory configuration at the OS level:

Check the sysctl kernel parameters for overcommit of memory:
File path /etc/sysctl.conf
 

# sysctl -a |grep commit
vm.overcommit_memory = 2 (default is 0)
vm.overcommit_ratio = 50 (default is 50)

 

Resolution

This is not a PowerFlex issue. PowerFlex is working as Designed.

 

To check and/or modify the vm.overcommit settings follow these steps:

1. Log in to the SDS using SSH as root

2. Run 

cat /etc/sysctl.conf | grep "vm.overcommit"


Ex.

[root@sds-node logs]# cat /etc/sysctl.conf | grep "vm.overcommit"
vm.overcommit_memory = 2
vm.overcommit_ratio = 50

3, Run the following commands

sed -i 's/vm\.overcommit_memory = .*/vm\.overcommit_memory = 2/g' /etc/sysctl.conf
sed -i 's/vm\.overcommit_ratio = .*/vm\.overcommit_ratio = 100/g' /etc/sysctl.conf
sysctl -p
Validation
[root@sds-node logs]# cat /etc/sysctl.conf | grep "vm.overcommit"
vm.overcommit_memory = 2
vm.overcommit_ratio = 100
Repeat these steps on all impacted SDSs in the environment to ensure that they are set to the recommended best practice settings.  You do not need to place the SDS into maintenance mode to perform this operation. 

 

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Additional Information

 

 

Affected Products

VxFlex Product Family

Products

PowerFlex Software, VxFlex Product Family, VxFlex Ready Node, ScaleIO Ready Node-PowerEdge 13G, PowerFlex appliance R640, PowerFlex appliance R740XD, PowerFlex appliance R840
Article Properties
Article Number: 000065036
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 18 May 2026
Version:  5
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