Dear listmembers, thanks to the inputs to David Miller there is a fix for the kmalloc issue with sys32_get_kernel_syms() in linux/arch/sparc64/kernel/sys_sparc32.c, preventing the kernel from reading the entire symbol table due to a memory limitation. Rather than my initial suggestion to change the unsigned long to an unsigned int in struct kernel_syms, the kmalloc() should be changed into a vmalloc() giving significant improvement with regard to the max amount of symbols that can be read. So, I would suggest (tested on my U60) to integrate the following patch into the kernel 2.4-tree (cannot tell about 2.6). I would expect similar issues on other 32/64 arches, but cannot test. x86_64 contains the very same function with the very same call in linux/arc/x86_64/kernel/ia32/sys_ia32.c. The number of symbols that can be read by sys32_get_kernel_syms is limited to 2048 at max, what is not enough IMHO. Dave Miller suggested to replace the kmalloc() by a vmalloc(), this should be uncritical here as I do not think the delay is of significance. This increases the memsize-limit from 2^17 i. e. 128k to several MByte, what should be sufficient. Successfully tested here (kernel 2.4.33): --- linux/arch/sparc64/kernel/sys_sparc32.c 2006-08-11 06:18:20.000000000 + +++ linux/arch/sparc64/kernel/sys_sparc32.c 2006-08-25 12:37:42.000000000 + @@ -3730,7 +3730,7 @@ len = sys_get_kernel_syms(NULL); if (!table) return len; - tbl = kmalloc (len * sizeof (struct kernel_sym), GFP_KERNEL); + tbl = vmalloc (len * sizeof (struct kernel_sym)); if (!tbl) return -ENOMEM; old_fs = get_fs(); set_fs (KERNEL_DS); @@ -3741,7 +3741,7 @@ copy_to_user (table->name, tbl[i].name, 60)) break; } - kfree (tbl); + vfree (tbl); return i; } Thanks to Dave Miller once again, take care Dieter Jurzitza -- ________________________________________________ HARMAN BECKER AUTOMOTIVE SYSTEMS Dr.-Ing. Dieter Jurzitza Manager Hardware Systems System Development Industriegebiet Ittersbach Becker-Göring Str. 16 D-76307 Karlsbad / Germany Phone: +49 (0)7248 71-1577 Fax: +49 (0)7248 71-1216 eMail: DJurzitza@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Internet: http://www.becker.de ******************************************* Diese E-Mail enthaelt vertrauliche und/oder rechtlich geschuetzte Informationen. Wenn Sie nicht der richtige Adressat sind oder diese E-Mail irrtuemlich erhalten haben, informieren Sie bitte sofort den Absender und loeschen Sie diese Mail. Das unerlaubte Kopieren sowie die unbefugte Weitergabe dieser Mail ist nicht gestattet. This e-mail may contain confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient (or have received this e-mail in error) please notify the sender immediately and delete this e-mail. Any unauthorized copying, disclosure or distribution of the contents in this e-mail is strictly forbidden. ******************************************* - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe sparclinux" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html