Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 10:08:40 -0400
From: Andrew Rodland <arodland@noln.com>
To: mru@users.sourceforge.net (M)
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: memory leak?
Message-Id: <20020722100840.2599c2f3.arodland@noln.com>
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On 21 Jul 2002 16:00:09 +0200
mru@users.sourceforge.net (M) wrote:

> 
> I noticed that doing lots or file accesses causes the used memory to
> increase, *after* subtracting buffers/cache. Here is an example:
> 
> $ free
>              total       used       free     shared    buffers    
>              cached
> Mem:        773776      30024     743752          0       1992     
> 10424-/+ buffers/cache:      17608     756168
> Swap:        81904          0      81904
> $ du > /dev/null
> $ free
>              total       used       free     shared    buffers    
>              cached
> Mem:        773776      78008     695768          0      26328     
> 10472-/+ buffers/cache:      41208     732568
> Swap:        81904          0      81904
> 
> Here 24 MB of memory have been used up. Repeating the du seems to have
> little effect. This directory has ~3200 subdirs and 13400 files.
> 
> After a few hours use about 200 MB are used, apperently for
> nothing. Killing all processed and unmounting file systems doesn't
> help.
> 
> Is this a memory leak? I get the same results with ext2, ext3,
> reiserfs and nfs.

wow!
I've been seeing this, too, but I thought I was just reading something
wrong. Especially after my nightly cron jobs (which involve a 'find
/') run, I'll often find myself with 80% of physical RAM used, and
nobody (as far as 'top' can see) using it. You didn't specify which
kernel you're using, but I'm running 2.4.19-rc1-ac1 plus some patches,
and I've seen it since at least about pre9-ac*. I might try to narrow it
down more if it could be useful.

--hobbs
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