Kernel message "Scanning for low memory corruption every 60 seconds"

[Jeffrey Walton]

I seem to be getting the dmesg associated with (BIOS area) memory corruptions:

$ dmesg | grep -B 3 -A 3 'memory corruption'
[ 0.000000] 9 disabled
[ 0.000000] x86/PAT: Configuration [0-7]: WB WC UC- UC WB WC UC- WT
[ 0.000000] e820: last_pfn = 0x7b000 max_arch_pfn = 0x400000000
[ 0.000000] Scanning 1 areas for low memory corruption
[ 0.000000] Base memory trampoline at [ffff9251c0098000] 98000 size 24576
[ 0.000000] Using GB pages for direct mapping
[ 0.000000] BRK [0x0aa51000, 0x0aa51fff] PGTABLE
--
[ 1.921953] Freeing initrd memory: 40180K (ffff9251f3176000 - ffff9251f58b3000)
[ 1.921959] PCI-DMA: Using software bounce buffering for IO (SWIOTLB)
[ 1.921962] software IO TLB [mem 0x6d6c6000-0x716c6000] (64MB) mapped at [ffff92522d6c6000-ffff9252316c5fff]
[ 1.922193] Scanning for low memory corruption every 60 seconds
[ 1.923014] futex hash table entries: 1024 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
[ 1.923057] audit: initializing netlink subsys (disabled)
[ 1.923084] audit: type=2000 audit(1485733297.863:1): initialized

According to https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16661#c15, the fix was committed 6 years ago:

   a fix for this has been merged in .37-rc1 ...
   x86, bios: By default, reserve the low 64K for all BIOSes

It looks like the kernel is being built with an option that's no longer needed (or I have mixed-up issues or mis-parsed the bug reports).

**********

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 16.10
Release: 16.10
Codename: yakkety
goldmont:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 16.10
Release: 16.10
Codename: yakkety

[Ubuntu Kernel Bot (ubuntu-kernel-bot)]

This bug is missing log files that will aid in diagnosing the problem. While running an Ubuntu kernel (not a mainline or third-party kernel) please enter the following command in a terminal window:

apport-collect 1660222

and then change the status of the bug to 'Confirmed'.

If, due to the nature of the issue you have encountered, you are unable to run this command, please add a comment stating that fact and change the bug status to 'Confirmed'.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]