CentOS 6.5 : machine with more that 1 TB RAM => "no free pages available" on boot

Question

I have a upgraded a server with more than 1 TB of RAM, and it is unable to boot. With 768GB of RAM all is working fine.

I got the following message :

Trying to allocate 1005 pages for VMLINUZ.
[Linux-EFI, setup=0x112a, size=0x3ecab0]
no free pages available
Error 27: Unrecognized command

I must have missed a simple command switch, but unable to find it.

Have you swapped memory to ensure that you can successfully boot on all the memory modules? You're using an X86_64 release with a 64 bit processor right? — user3241388, Sep 30, 2014 at 6:42
I have already checked all DIMMs are fine. Of course it is a 64-bit processor (Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E7-8880) and an 64-bit OS — anael, Sep 30, 2014 at 7:32
Can you check your kernel config for highmem support cat /usr/src/linux/.config | grep HIGHMEM along with a uname -a? — eyoung100, Sep 30, 2014 at 22:10
Linux dca2-207-cb1-sv1 2.6.32-431.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Sun Nov 10 22:19:54 EST 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux — anael, Oct 1, 2014 at 11:54

anael · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-15 07:14:55Z

1

Was an UEFI configuration problem, Hitachi SMP blades with more than 1TB of RAM need some tweeks.

(Firmware dependant, so if you have such problem, ask Hitachi for the correct parameters).

answered Oct 15, 2014 at 7:14

anael

318 bronze badges

+1 self aanswers are good for SE, thanks for sharing what you learned.
– msw
Oct 15, 2014 at 7:45

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