Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753672AbXHZQOv (ORCPT ); Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:14:51 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751982AbXHZQOl (ORCPT ); Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:14:41 -0400 Received: from wa-out-1112.google.com ([209.85.146.178]:6529 "EHLO wa-out-1112.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751944AbXHZQOl (ORCPT ); Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:14:41 -0400 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=BmD5Vk11B0ZWKqxKeFD8dzRwrA7NsTU3Ehv+Avlk9BHjLPupvz7Z5/pNRpvZhh4xfpuh9g6syhDAZTBouMrckIubYIq1LNiWRKMSs84h3q8yxg8fYRyC7StrGXqREZ2a9wRruV6Vay77QnFMpSG1nWbJ5HUQa4u0DVreXu2JthQ= Message-ID: <466ad3f90708260914v7d11ebc2s8025ea5d549683dd@mail.gmail.com> Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:14:40 -0400 From: "Fred Tyler" To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Slow, persistent memory leak in 2.6.20 In-Reply-To: <466ad3f90708260914g3cb92f30q8d5672e3f9cf960c@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <466ad3f90708260739v645294b9t641cb8258dcc4f4@mail.gmail.com> <466ad3f90708260851u5d8ac58duc4072b71ebf78fc8@mail.gmail.com> <466ad3f90708260914g3cb92f30q8d5672e3f9cf960c@mail.gmail.com> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2365 Lines: 57 On 8/26/07, Fred Tyler wrote: > On 8/26/07, Jan Engelhardt wrote: > > > > On Aug 26 2007 11:51, Fred Tyler wrote: > > >On 8/26/07, Fred Tyler wrote: > > >> I think I've come across a memory leak in 2.6.20. I've upgraded to the > > >> latest 2.6.20.17, but it didn't seem to help. > > > > > >Sorry to keep replying to my own post, but further investigation > > >suggests that the memory losses may be occurring at times of heavy > > >filesystem access. The machines in question run rsyncs of hundreds of > > >thousands of files every few hours, and I'm starting to think that the > > >memory loss occurs during these times. I don't know how I'd go about > > >proving this though... > > > > Please rule out filesystem caches by issuing > > sync; > > echo 3 >/proc/sys/vm/drop_caches; > > > Ok, I did this on a non-production machine that has only been up for a > few hours, and here's what happened: > > ======== Before ========= > > $ free -m > total used free shared buffers cached > Mem: 878 824 54 0 111 422 > -/+ buffers/cache: 290 587 > Swap: 63 0 63 > > > ======== After ======== > > root@b0$ free -m > total used free shared buffers cached > Mem: 878 47 830 0 6 4 > -/+ buffers/cache: 36 841 > Swap: 63 0 63 > > ====================== > > So, I guess it worked? (I don't know what was supposed to happen, but > memory usage dropped significantly when I did this.) > > However, I'm not sure this staging machine has been up long enough or > doing enough to exhibit the problem. I can try this on my production > servers (the ones I provided graphs for) late tonight, but how safe is > running this command? Does it permanently disable file caching? Do I > need to reset it afterwards? If I stop all services (databases, > logging, etc) first, am I protected against data loss? > - 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/