JDK-8027842 : Kitchensink on Solaris gets "Attempt to use MPSS" failed
  • Type: Bug
  • Component: hotspot
  • Sub-Component: gc
  • Affected Version: hs25,9
  • Priority: P4
  • Status: Closed
  • Resolution: Duplicate
  • Submitted: 2013-11-05
  • Updated: 2014-08-18
  • Resolved: 2014-08-18
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JDK 9
9Resolved
Related Reports
Duplicate :  
JDK-8049536 - os::commit_memory on Solaris uses aligment_hint as page size
Relates :  
JDK-8048877 - VM warning "Attempt to use MPSS failed" on Solaris SPARC
Relates :  
JDK-8016749 - -XX:+UseISM fails an assert(obj->is_oop()) when running SPECjbb2005
Description
When running Kitchensink on a rather large Solaris machine, we get the error:
"Attempt to use MPSS failed".

This error comes from os_solaris.cpp, Solaris::set_up_large_pages. The issue that the system call memcntl does not succeed. For more info about memcntl, see http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=174103&seqNum=3.

AFAIK, memcntl is used to give Solaris a hint for the page size we want to use for a given virtual address region. memcntl can fails for various reasons (errno is not printed in the debug message), some examples are:
- Unsupported page size for the virtual address range
- Unaligned boundaries for the virtual address range
- Virtual address region is reserved with MAP_NORESERVE

The unsuccessful syscall means that the OS will not get the hint, which might result in slightly less performance.

Impact: Medium (we might get slightly wrong performance, but the app will still work)
Likelihood: Low (only happened once)
Workaround: High (run without large pages)

Medium + Low + High = P4
Comments
The most likely cause of the "Attempt to use MPSS" is JDK-8049536.
18-08-2014
RULE bigapps/runThese/nowarnings Unknown Found warnings in server log: Attempt to use MPSS failed.
01-07-2014
RULE bigapps/Kitchensink/nowarnings Unknown Found warnings in server log: Attempt to use MPSS failed.
25-06-2014