In __alloc_pages():

if ((p->flags & (PF_MEMALLOC | PF_MEMDIE)) && !in_interrupt()) {
         /* go through the zonelist yet again, ignoring mins */
         for (i = 0; zones[i] != NULL; i++) {
                 struct zone *z = zones[i];

                 page = buffered_rmqueue(z, order, gfp_mask);
                 if (page) {
                         zone_statistics(zonelist, z);
                         goto got_pg;
                 }
         }
         goto nopage;                <<<< HERE!!! FAIL...
}

kswapd (which has PF_MEMALLOC flag) can fail to allocate memory even when
it allocates it with __GFP_NOFAIL flag.
Signed-Off-By: Pavel Emelianov <xemul@sw.ru>
Signed-Off-By: Denis Lunev <den@sw.ru>
Signed-Off-By: Kirill Korotaev <dev@sw.ru>
Cc: Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@yahoo.com.au>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>