RHEL6.2: panic "kernel BUG at mm/huge_memory.c:1384!" (mapcount 0 page_mapcount 1)

Issue

A panic "kernel BUG at mm/huge_memory.c:1384!" can occur on systems where multithreaded applications are utilizing the madvise() system call. The panic is preceded by the console message "mapcount 0 page_mapcount 1". This issue has been observed on KVM hosts because the qemu-kvm processes (which provide the execution environment for KVM guests) are utilizing madvise() in connection with ballooning. However, this issue is not limited to KVM hosts.