Bio & Biovec-1 increasing cache size, never freed during disk IO

["matteo brancaleoni" <mbrancaleoni@gmail.com>]

Hi.

I'm experiencing a problem with 2.6.15.4 / 2.6.16-rc4, noticed during
high disk IO (copying a lot of data between 2 machines): the system
memory get filled up, until the full swap is used and the system must
be rebooted (or is unusable). Stopping the process does not free the
memory, and happens not only copying via network, but also with a
simple
cp -a dirwithmanybigfiles testdir.

The system is running on athlon64:
Linux morgor 2.6.16-rc4 #2 SMP Sat Feb 25 19:55:36 CET 2006 x86_64
x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Same issue with 2.6.15.4

The box has a single soft-raid1 device made by 2 sata disk on promise
controller.
Attached slabinfo dump and dmesg dump.

Some system informations:
* This is the modules list:
Linux morgor 2.6.16-rc4 #2 SMP Sat Feb 25 19:55:36 CET 2006 x86_64
x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
[root@morgor ~]# lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
ipv6                  399008  18
ppdev                  42888  0
autofs4                55560  1
nfs                   251224  2
lockd                  97424  2 nfs
nfs_acl                37120  1 nfs
sunrpc                191944  4 nfs,lockd,nfs_acl
rfcomm                105376  0
l2cap                  92160  5 rfcomm
bluetooth             117252  4 rfcomm,l2cap
dm_mirror              54912  0
dm_mod                 90192  1 dm_mirror
video                  50952  0
button                 41120  0
battery                43912  0
ac                     38920  0
lp                     48208  0
parport_pc             63144  1
parport                74636  3 ppdev,lp,parport_pc
nvram                  42888  0
ohci1394               67272  0
ehci_hcd               65160  0
sg                     69672  0
ieee1394              392216  1 ohci1394
uhci_hcd               65952  0
snd_via82xx            63784  0
gameport               50832  1 snd_via82xx
snd_ac97_codec        136536  1 snd_via82xx
snd_ac97_bus           36224  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_seq_dummy          37508  0
snd_seq_oss            66688  0
snd_seq_midi_event     41472  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                90144  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_pcm_oss            85632  0
snd_mixer_oss          51328  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm               126728  3 snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              59656  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc         44816  2 snd_via82xx,snd_pcm
snd_mpu401_uart        42112  1 snd_via82xx
snd_rawmidi            61696  1 snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device         43280  4 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi
i2c_viapro             43160  0
snd                    97320  11
snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
i2c_core               57728  1 i2c_viapro
skge                   72720  0
soundcore              44576  1 snd
raid1                  54912  2
ext3                  163984  2
jbd                    93480  1 ext3
sata_promise           45700  6
sata_via               42500  0
libata                 93592  2 sata_promise,sata_via
sd_mod                 50688  8
scsi_mod              180688  4 sg,sata_promise,libata,sd_mod

* fstab
[root@morgor ~]# cat /etc/fstab
/dev/md1                /                       ext3    defaults        1 1
/dev/md0                /boot                   ext3    defaults        1 2
devpts                  /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
tmpfs                   /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
proc                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
sysfs                   /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0
LABEL=SWAP-sda2         swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
LABEL=SWAP-sdb2         swap                    swap    defaults        0 0

* cpuinfo
[root@morgor ~]# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
cpu family      : 15
model           : 47
model name      : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+
stepping        : 0
cpu MHz         : 1800.000
cache size      : 512 KB
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge
mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext
fxsr_opt lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni lahf_lm
bogomips        : 3613.48
TLB size        : 1024 4K pages
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc

Thanks a lot,

Matteo Brancaleoni

Attachment: slabinfo.txt.gz
Description: GNU Zip compressed data

Attachment: dmesg.txt.gz
Description: GNU Zip compressed data