Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261624AbVCIVxw (ORCPT ); Wed, 9 Mar 2005 16:53:52 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261552AbVCIVxv (ORCPT ); Wed, 9 Mar 2005 16:53:51 -0500 Received: from e4.ny.us.ibm.com ([32.97.182.144]:6825 "EHLO e4.ny.us.ibm.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261658AbVCIVxG (ORCPT ); Wed, 9 Mar 2005 16:53:06 -0500 Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 03:23:49 +0530 From: Dipankar Sarma To: Badari Pulavarty Cc: ext2-devel , Linux Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: inode cache, dentry cache, buffer heads usage Message-ID: <20050309215349.GD4663@in.ibm.com> Reply-To: dipankar@in.ibm.com References: <1110394558.24286.203.camel@dyn318077bld.beaverton.ibm.com> <20050309212732.GA5036@in.ibm.com> <1110403763.24286.213.camel@dyn318077bld.beaverton.ibm.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1110403763.24286.213.camel@dyn318077bld.beaverton.ibm.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1576 Lines: 38 On Wed, Mar 09, 2005 at 01:29:23PM -0800, Badari Pulavarty wrote: > On Wed, 2005-03-09 at 13:27, Dipankar Sarma wrote: > > On Wed, Mar 09, 2005 at 10:55:58AM -0800, Badari Pulavarty wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > > > We have a 8-way P-III, 16GB RAM running 2.6.8-1. We use this as > > > our server to keep source code, cscopes and do the builds. > > > This machine seems to slow down over the time. One thing we > > > keep noticing is it keeps running out of lowmem. Most of > > > the lowmem is used for ext3 inode cache + dentry cache + > > > bufferheads + Buffers. So we did 2:2 split - but it improved > > > thing, but again run into same issues. > > > > > > So, why is these slab cache are not getting purged/shrinked even > > > under memory pressure ? (I have seen lowmem as low as 6MB). What > > > can I do to keep the machine healthy ? > > > > How does /proc/sys/fs/dentry-state look when you run low on lowmem ? > > > > badari@kernel:~$ cat /proc/sys/fs/dentry-state > 1434093 1348947 45 0 0 0 > badari@kernel:~$ grep dentry /proc/slabinfo > dentry_cache 1434094 1857519 144 27 1 : tunables 120 > 60 8 : slabdata 68797 68797 0 Hmm.. so we are not shrinking dcache despite a large number of unsed dentries. That is where we need to look. Will dig a bit tomorrow. Thanks Dipankar - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/