> On Thu, Feb 10, 2005 at 10:15:39AM +0100, DafyddHugh wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I am running Fedora Core 3 on a machine with 512Mb memory.
> >
> > There are 2 problems
> >
> > 1. When the physical memory is exhausted the system tries to use swap,
> the disk spins and the system becomes unusable. This is under
> investigation, but any ideas would be appreciated.
> >
> > 2. More of an issue. Every few minutes (4 or 5) the available physical
> memory decreases by 64k, while the cache memory increases by 4k or 8k.
> This is happening on a very "lean" machine (see simple ps post below).
> No processes seem to be increasing memory at the same time. Usually the
> machine also runs httpd, mysqld, popfile in addition to the posted ps.
> It looks like a memory leak, but I can't find the offending process -
> any ideas?
>
> Which kernel version are you running ?
> What does the output of free, and slabtop look like ?
>
> Dave
I have a similar question as 2 above. My system: 2.6.10-1.741_FC3
The free command displays the free physical memory decreasing continuesly
every minute or so:
# free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1035788 1017952 17836 0 296172 81224
-/+ buffers/cache: 640556 395232
Swap: 1052216 8120 1044096
# free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1035788 1017980 17808 0 296228 81244
-/+ buffers/cache: 640508 395280
Swap: 1052216 8120 1044096
# free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1035788 1018100 17688 0 296260 81300
-/+ buffers/cache: 640540 395248
Swap: 1052216 8120 1044096
Is it normal? I don't know what will happen if the free memory goes to
zero, but it seems that, in my system, it never goes to zero. At some
point, it jumps up a little. Please note, my this system is a testing
system, only 2 regular users were set up, and only 1 user is checking the
testing emails (plus root's shell). It was just rebooted 2 days ago:
# top
top - 11:51:21 up 1 day, 21:36, 3 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
Tasks: 90 total, 1 running, 86 sleeping, 0 stopped, 3 zombie
Cpu(s): 0.3% us, 0.0% sy, 0.0% ni, 99.3% id, 0.0% wa, 0.3% hi, 0.0% si
Mem: 1035788k total, 1018564k used, 17224k free, 296420k buffers
Swap: 1052216k total, 8120k used, 1044096k free, 81360k cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
10847 root 16 0 3632 948 756 R 0.7 0.1 0:00.07 top
3438 root 16 0 3940 580 492 S 0.3 0.1 0:17.43 nifd
3938 root 16 0 7756 4848 1612 S 0.3 0.5 1:11.28 hald
1 root 16 0 2756 560 480 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.82 init
2 root 34 19 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.08 ksoftirqd/0
...
Why does it take almost all of 1Gb physical ram?
Thanks!
Hongwei Li
