26/12/23, 17:43 Document 2539138.

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Oracle Linux 7 - "transparent_hugepage=never" and Disabled in "tuned" Profiles but still "AnonHugePages" Is Showing Non Zero Value
(Doc ID 2539138.1)

In this Document

Symptoms
Cause
Solution
References

APPLIES TO:

Linux OS - Version Oracle Linux 7.0 and later

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure - Version N/A and later
Linux x86-64

SYMPTOMS

On Oracle Linux 7 server, the THP has been disabled in the grub command line "transparent_hugepage=never", and also Linux uses "tuned" profiles. But "AnonHugePages" is still showing non zero value.
Following KM are referenced to disabled the THP.
ALERT: Disable Transparent HugePages on SLES11, RHEL6, RHEL7, OL6, OL7, and UEK2 and above ( Doc ID 1557478.1 )
Oracle Linux 7 - How to disable Transparent HugePages for RHCK kernel? ( Doc ID 2066217.1 )

# cat /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled>>
always madvise [never] ← It's disabled.

# cat /proc/meminfo

...

VmallocUsed: 5162696 kB
VmallocChunk: 33536651960 kB
HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB
AnonHugePages: 2048 kB ← Still showing non zero value
CmaTotal: 16384 kB
CmaFree: 0 kB

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CAUSE

The kernel tries to use huge zero page on read page fault by default. i.e When a process allocates a large chunk of memory, the kernel may decide to back that memory with the
"zero hugepage" at first. This is one hugepage in the kernel that is mapped to any virtual memory range that is supposed to be initialized to all zeroes on first access.It remains
mapped read-only, so the first time a process tries to modify that memory it will get another page fault at which point the kernel will replace the read-only "zero hugepage" with
writable pages.

Kernel documentation reference for transparent hugepages.

By default kernel tries to use huge zero page on read page fault.

It's possible to disable huge zero page by writing 0 or enable it

back by writing 1:

SOLUTION

Since the size of 'AnonHugePages' is less than one percent of the total physical memory, it can be ignored.

Note; - The "AnonHugePages' value can be monitored periodically and if the size increase rapidly and associates with any other issue, please create SR with Oracle Support for
further investigation.

REFERENCES

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