Why can’t QEMU allocate the memory if the Linux caches are too big

cachekernellinux-kernelqemu

If I use my machine [Ubuntu 16.04 64 bit, kernel 4.4] for a while, QEMU needs the kernel caches to be dropped, otherwise, it won't manage to allocate the RAM.

Why does it happen?

This is a sample run:

~$ free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:          15050        5427        3690          56        5931        4803
Swap:             0           0           0

~$ sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -m 10240 # and other options
qemu-system-x86_64: cannot set up guest memory 'pc.ram': Cannot allocate memory

~$ echo 3 | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
3

~$ free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:          15050        1799        9446          56        3803        9414
Swap:             0           0           0

~$ sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -m 10240 # and other options
qemu-system-x86_64: cannot set up guest memory 'pc.ram': Cannot allocate memory

~$ echo 3 | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
3

~$ free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:          15050        1502       10819          56        2727       10784
Swap:             0           0           0

~$ sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -m 10240 # and other options
# Now QEMU starts

Best Answer

Not all cached data can be discarded immediately. For example, cached dirty pages have to be written back to disk before they can be removed from RAM. You have no swap, so until those writes complete, there simply isn't enough available space for QEMU.

You really should add a reasonable amount of swap. You can't expect the memory manager to do a good job with one hand tied behind its back.

Related Topic