error message with poudriere

[Lorenzo Salvadore]

> > > Running the devel/poudriere version of poudriere on a freebsd 11.2 amd64
> > > machine, I am often presented with this message:
> > > +swap_pager_getswapspace(18): failed
> > > The number in parentheses changes, but the message stays the same. The
> > > message is printed literally hundreds of times.
> > > Exactly what does it mean, and what do I do to correct it? I cannot find
> > > anything in the poudriere documentation that mentions it.
> >
> > I think the error means that you used all of you RAM and your swap space.
> > If I am right, then you need to add either more RAM or more swap space
> > (easiest would probably be to create a swap file), unless there is a bug in
> > ports-mgmt/poudriere-devel (for example a memory allocation in an infinite
> > loop).
> > I am sure you will soon get help from persons much more capable than me,
> > but while you wait I suggest you tell how much RAM and swap space do you
> > have, what are you trying to do with poudriere, if the problem arises with
> > ports-mgmt/poudriere too and send the output of the following two commands:
> >
> > -   swapinfo
> > -   sysctl vm.vmtotal
> >
> > The nearer you execute them to the the moment when the error is produced,
> > the better it is.
> > Lorenzo Salvadore.
>
> After a fresh reboot, this is the output:
>
> ~ # swapinfo
> Device 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity
> /dev/ada0p2 2097152 0 2097152 0%
> ~ #
> ~ # sysctl vm.vmtotal
> vm.vmtotal:
> System wide totals computed every five seconds: (values in kilobytes)
>
> ======================================================
>
> Processes: (RUNQ: 1 Disk Wait: 0 Page Wait: 0 Sleep: 119)
> Virtual Memory: (Total: 4542784K Active: 4498692K)
> Real Memory: (Total: 1662988K Active: 1656464K)
> Shared Virtual Memory: (Total: 130504K Active: 96116K)
> Shared Real Memory: (Total: 44132K Active: 37808K)
> Free Memory: 794124K
>
> I was reading about a "PQ_LAUNDRY" variable/setting that pertains to FreeBSD
> 11.x that is supposed to have some affect on this. I cannot find out much
> information about it though or how to set it.

I do not know about PQ_LAUNDRY (as I said, there is people much more skilled than me),
however I would suggest you to first exclude simpler solutions, if you have not done it
yet.

The simplest solution is to consider the possibilty that your 4GB of RAM and 2GB of swap
(if I have interpreted the data correctly) get full during your use of poudriere: does that
looks likely to you?

If this is indeed the problem, then you should increase swap space. You can do it
by following these instructions:
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/adding-swap-space.html

If you are unsure that this is the problem, it might be better to first test the solution
by choosing to add swap through a swapfile (it is in the above documentation link).
Once tested, if this fixes your problem, then you might decide to use an hard drive
or a partion instead.

Be prepared to have your system running slow: swap gives you more memory, but
reduces your computations speed.

Lorenzo Salvadore.