Bug#474402: sbcl: FTBFS on amd64: mmap: Cannot allocate memory: ensure_space: failed to validate 8589869056 bytes at 0x1000000000

[Thiemo Seufer]

Kurt Roeckx wrote:
> Package: sbcl
> Version: 1:1.0.15.0-2
> Severity: serious
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Your package is failing to build on amd64 with the following error:
> //entering make-host-1.sh
> //building cross-compiler, and doing first genesis
> mmap: Cannot allocate memory
> ensure_space: failed to validate 8589869056 bytes at 0x1000000000
> (hint: Try "ulimit -a"; maybe you should increase memory limits.)
> make: *** [build-arch-stamp] Error 1
> 
> 
> The buildd host does not have 8GB of RAM + swap available.

As mentioned on IRC, the alternative is to allow memory overcommit
via sysctl, or simply by

echo 1 >/proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory

This is no new behaviour of SBCL, and rather a implementation limitation
than a bug. SBCL needs to reserve a fixed contiguous address space for
its GC-managed memory. Linux 2.6 kernels reserve by default memory or
backing store count for such mmapped-but-not-used address space
reservations.

(The last time I looked, a SBCL build used about ~50 MB of RAM.)


Thiemo