I've also been experiencing this since updating to linux- image-3.2.0-38-generic as part of applying 12.04.2 updates to my servers. I put similar strace info into a comment at http://askubuntu.com/questions/258180/why-does-running-ps-results-in- cannot-allocate-memory-error .
I've found the problem occurs when any user with a large number of groups owns a running process. When ps gets to that process, it dies. I've found I was able to duplicate the issue with local accounts with these steps. The number of groups required may depend on the server. root@alowther-d02:~# for i in $(seq 180); do groupadd group$i ; done root@alowther-d02:~# useradd user1 root@alowther-d02:~# su - user1 -c ps No directory, logging in with HOME=/ PID TTY TIME CMD 5182 pts/0 00:00:00 su 5183 pts/0 00:00:00 sh 5185 pts/0 00:00:00 ps root@alowther-d02:~# for i in $(seq 180); do adduser user1 group$i; done > /dev/null root@alowther-d02:~# su - user1 -c ps xrealloc: realloc(1073741824) failedCannot allocate memory -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1132789 Title: linux-image-3.2.0-38-generic & winbind issue To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1132789/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
