Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755193AbXHZRlw (ORCPT ); Sun, 26 Aug 2007 13:41:52 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754343AbXHZRlp (ORCPT ); Sun, 26 Aug 2007 13:41:45 -0400 Received: from wa-out-1112.google.com ([209.85.146.179]:31955 "EHLO wa-out-1112.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754040AbXHZRlp (ORCPT ); Sun, 26 Aug 2007 13:41:45 -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=n6uaO9s5WEQwKugIHUBE/+2+zaJt63POs09V8qP/SsEjZpkyj7X9INpG6eUwrnqBFweOBA39WqxhnrwqQw2qAttzlr0A9u3l/K9S4hxuVujr0rMDlzuX1+q6gl7hnvPQtUoJYIKtuBmU273aDw2+vUEs6tF6Aa4FLUEeXLRiKeE= Message-ID: <466ad3f90708261041g72fee1a2q2f541161884d4499@mail.gmail.com> Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 13:41:44 -0400 From: "Fred Tyler" To: vda.linux@googlemail.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Slow, persistent memory leak in 2.6.20 In-Reply-To: <200708261803.12717.vda.linux@googlemail.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> <466ad3f90708260916x5d19d0d3hd828e63520960192@mail.gmail.com> <200708261803.12717.vda.linux@googlemail.com> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1409 Lines: 30 On 8/26/07, Denys Vlasenko wrote: > On Sunday 26 August 2007 17:16, Fred Tyler wrote: > > So, I guess it worked? (I don't know what was supposed to happen, but > > memory usage dropped significantly when I did this.) > > If you can reclaim "leaked" memory this way, it means that > you found a bug where cached data is incorrectly kept > in RAM in preference of other data. > (I'm assuming that you do have real problems after some time > of "leaking" memory - you mention that you get swap storms > and eventually machine is dead.) This was exactly what happened with 2.6.12 -- more and more memory used until there was a swap storm and a dead machine. The 2.6.20 machines haven't been up long enough to know if they're going to be hit by the same problem, but it seems peculiar to me that the 2.6.16 machine does not do anything remotely like this. As you can see in the graphs, the 2.6.16 memory use levels off very quickly, but 2.6.12 keeps dropping until the machine bombs. The 2.6.20 graph looks like it's heading the same direction as 2.6.12. I'm going to run drop_caches on the 2.6.20 machines tonight and see what happens... - 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/