Re: Memory accounting problem in 2.4.13, 2.4.14pre, and possibly 2.4.14

[Andrew Morton]

Mike Fedyk wrote:
> 
> >
> 
> I am running unpatched 2.4.14 now.
> 
> Do you still want me to try this patch now that you know I have been able to
> see the problem with 2.2.14+ext3?
> 

It's OK - I can reproduce it easily anyway.

There are two things here.  Recent -ac kernels had a merge
bug down in the /proc code which caused `Cached:' to go
negative.  It was recently fixed.

And quite independently, current ext3 for Linus kernels now has a
bug which causes the `buffermem_pages' number to get too large.
This has the exact same effect: `Cached:' goes negative. 

The buffermem_pages counter is purely for reporting - no VM decisions
are based on its value.  But if it worries you, just remove line 1933 of fs/jbd/transaction.c.