Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755515Ab0BJDxS (ORCPT ); Tue, 9 Feb 2010 22:53:18 -0500 Received: from e28smtp05.in.ibm.com ([122.248.162.5]:40958 "EHLO e28smtp05.in.ibm.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755025Ab0BJDxO (ORCPT ); Tue, 9 Feb 2010 22:53:14 -0500 Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 09:20:52 +0530 From: Balbir Singh To: KOSAKI Motohiro Cc: Chris Friesen , Rik van Riel , Linux Kernel Mailing List , linux-mm@kvack.org Subject: Re: tracking memory usage/leak in "inactive" field in /proc/meminfo? Message-ID: <20100210035052.GH3290@balbir.in.ibm.com> Reply-To: balbir@linux.vnet.ibm.com References: <4B71927D.6030607@nortel.com> <20100210093140.12D9.A69D9226@jp.fujitsu.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20100210093140.12D9.A69D9226@jp.fujitsu.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-08-17) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1536 Lines: 39 * KOSAKI Motohiro [2010-02-10 09:32:07]: > > Hi, > > > > I'm hoping you can help me out. I'm on a 2.6.27 x86 system and I'm > > seeing the "inactive" field in /proc/meminfo slowly growing over time to > > the point where eventually the oom-killer kicks in and starts killing > > things. The growth is not evident in any other field in /proc/meminfo. > > > > I'm trying to figure out where the memory is going, and what it's being > > used for. > > > > As I've found, the fields in /proc/meminfo don't add up...in particular, > > active+inactive is quite a bit larger than > > buffers+cached+dirty+anonpages+mapped+pagetables+vmallocused. Initially > > the difference is about 156MB, but after about 13 hrs the difference is > > 240MB. > > > > How can I track down where this is going? Can you suggest any > > instrumentation that I can add? > > > > I'm reasonably capable, but I'm getting seriously confused trying to > > sort out the memory subsystem. Some pointers would be appreciated. > > can you please post your /proc/meminfo? > Do you have swap enabled? Can you help with the OOM killed dmesg log? Does the situation get better after OOM killing. /proc/meminfo as Kosaki suggested would be important as well. -- Three Cheers, Balbir -- 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/