install with encrypted home failed near the end: OSError: [Errno 12] Cannot allocate memory

Ah, I seem to have run out of memory:

Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: log-output -t ubiquity cp -a /var/log/syslog /target/var/log/installer/syslog
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: Exception during installation:
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: Traceback (most recent call last):
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 1720, in <module>
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: install.run()
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 57, in wrapper
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: self.cleanup()
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 1701, in cleanup
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: misc.execute('umount', os.path.join(self.target, 'cdrom'))
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/misc.py", line 506, in execute
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: status = subprocess.call(log_args)
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 493, in call
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: return Popen(*popenargs, **kwargs).wait()
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 679, in __init__
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: errread, errwrite)
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1143, in _execute_child
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: self.pid = os.fork()
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: OSError: [Errno 12] Cannot allocate memory

I'd allocated 768 MB to the virtual machine, perhaps that isn't enough with an encrypted home?

Bug 977390 is another bug where the system ran out of memory, however they were not using an encrypted home.

I increased the amount of RAM to 1024 MB and my install completed successfully.

Exception during installation:
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: Traceback (most recent call last):
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 1720, in <module>
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: install.run()
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 57, in wrapper
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: self.cleanup()
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 1701, in cleanup
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: misc.execute('umount', os.path.join(self.target, 'cdrom'))
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/misc.py", line 506, in execute
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: status = subprocess.call(log_args)
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 493, in call
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: return Popen(*popenargs, **kwargs).wait()
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 679, in __init__
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: errread, errwrite)
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1143, in _execute_child
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: self.pid = os.fork()
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py: OSError: [Errno 12] Cannot allocate memory
Apr 11 20:52:47 ubuntu plugininstall.py:

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/979350

I reproduce it with 1GB or virtual ram in a VM, encrypted home, 3rd party software and download updates selected.

debug log

I saw this but mine was marked as a duplicate. The machine I tested it on was bare metal HP Mini 110 with 1024M ram. It failed when I did 'Try Ubuntu', encrypted home, 3rd part and download updates selected. I was able to complete an install with encrypted home if I didn't 'Try Ubuntu' first.

I just tried this in a VM with 1024M ram, encrypted home, and 3rd party selected and had the same problem when using 'Install Ubuntu'. Upping the ram to 2048M worked around the issue.

I have been able to reproduce this on a netbook as well. Ubiquity crashes eventually with encrypted home, 3rd party sw and download updates selected.

I traced memory usage of Ubiquity (with pmap -d) and there is a huge increase of memory when the slideshow starts (~ +1.5GB)
The graph is attached

log files and data file

This issue is specific to amd64. On i386 the installation finishes without error.
Memory consumption on i386 is much lower than on amd64 (factor 4 to 8)
The graph attached is for i386 on a VM with 512MB.

"Writable" data also includes any writable mmap()ed files, so is not necessarily a good indicator of memory usage; seeing this jump from the slideshow probably just points to the data files being loaded and doesn't correspond to a real increase in memory usage (since 1.5GB would also obviously be a problem *without* ecryptfs). So this may not be the memory we're looking for.

I don't know if this will make much difference, but worth a shot if the slideshow is responsible for that much:

ubiquity (2.10.12) precise-proposed; urgency=low

  * Fix download verification to handle epochs correctly, and add a little
    more logging so that we can debug any further errors along these lines.
  * GTK frontend:
    - Disable WebKit's cache, since the slideshow doesn't have a significant
      browsing interface and the cache is memory-hungry. This may help with
      LP #979350.

 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Fri, 13 Apr 2012 19:49:13 +0100

It doesn't help matters that ecryptfs-setup-swap disables the compressed RAM device that we use for swap on live CDs under memory pressure. That probably doesn't make much difference in the 1GB case, but it'd still be a good thing to fix.

This bug was fixed in the package ecryptfs-utils - 96-0ubuntu3

---------------
ecryptfs-utils (96-0ubuntu3) precise; urgency=low

  * src/utils/ecryptfs-setup-swap: Skip /dev/zram* swap devices
    (LP: #979350).
 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:52:45 +0100

This bug was fixed in the package user-setup - 1.42ubuntu3

---------------
user-setup (1.42ubuntu3) precise; urgency=low

  * user-setup-apply:
    - Revert the change from 1.42ubuntu2. We'll handle this in ubiquity
      instead; in d-i, it seems to be too difficult to get right without the
      aid of script libraries from cryptsetup.
    - If OVERRIDE_ALREADY_ENCRYPTED_SWAP is set in the environment, assume
      that encrypted swap has already been set up rather than re-creating
      and re-zeroing swap (LP: #979350).
 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 02:46:54 +0100

The ubiquity side of this is in the upload just accepted into precise-proposed.

This bug was fixed in the package ubiquity - 2.10.14

---------------
ubiquity (2.10.14) precise-proposed; urgency=low

  [ Colin Watson ]
  * Install ubiquity-frontend-$frontend along with oem-config-$frontend to
    improve dependency resolution; with the packaging the way it is at the
    moment, apt may sometimes select ubiquity-frontend-kde to resolve
    ubiquity's dependency on a frontend before realising that oem-config-gtk
    already depends on ubiquity-frontend-gtk.
  * Don't default to installing GRUB to a removable device with /cdrom
    mounted from it, even if /cdrom's filesystem isn't iso9660
    (LP: #984989).
  * If encrypting the user's home directory, wipe and enable encrypted swap
    before starting the slideshow, because running the slideshow can use up
    a lot of memory so we won't be able to disable swap once that's in
    progress (LP: #979350).
  * Automatic update of included source packages: apt-setup 1:0.55ubuntu3,
    partman-base 153ubuntu4, user-setup 1.42ubuntu3.
  * If /etc/network/interfaces doesn't exist when configuring the network in
    oem-config, write out a skeleton one (LP: #985305).

  [ Stéphane Graber ]
  * Always install oem-config-slideshow-ubuntu in OEM mode, also for
    alternate installs (LP: #984736)
 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 03:30:44 +0100