I'm really evil, so I changed the loop in compact_capture_page() to basically steal the highest-order page it can. This shouldn't _break_ anything, but it does ensure that we'll be splitting pages that we find more often and recreating this *MUCH* faster: - for (order = cc->order; order < MAX_ORDER; order++) { + for (order = MAX_ORDER - 1; order >= cc->order;order--) I also augmented the area in capture_free_page() that I expect to be leaking: if (alloc_order != order) { static int leaked_pages = 0; leaked_pages += 1<<order; leaked_pages -= 1<<alloc_order; printk("%s() alloc_order(%d) != order(%d) leaked %d\n", __func__, alloc_order, order, leaked_pages); expand(zone, page, alloc_order, order, &zone->free_area[order], migratetype); } I add up all the fields in buddyinfo to figure out how much _should_ be in the allocator and then compare it to MemFree to get a guess at how much is leaked. That number correlates _really_ well with the "leaked_pages" variable above. That pretty much seals it for me. I'll run a stress test overnight to see if it pops up again. The patch I'm running is attached. I'll send a properly changelogged one tomorrow if it works.
--- linux-2.6.git-dave/mm/page_alloc.c | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff -puN mm/page_alloc.c~leak-fix-20121120-1 mm/page_alloc.c --- linux-2.6.git/mm/page_alloc.c~leak-fix-20121120-1 2012-11-20 19:44:09.588966346 -0500 +++ linux-2.6.git-dave/mm/page_alloc.c 2012-11-20 19:44:21.993057915 -0500 @@ -1405,7 +1405,7 @@ int capture_free_page(struct page *page, mt = get_pageblock_migratetype(page); if (unlikely(mt != MIGRATE_ISOLATE)) - __mod_zone_freepage_state(zone, -(1UL << order), mt); + __mod_zone_freepage_state(zone, -(1UL << alloc_order), mt); if (alloc_order != order) expand(zone, page, alloc_order, order, _