[vox-tech] Memory usage puzzle

Rod Roark vox-tech@lists.lugod.org
Fri, 18 Jan 2002 05:58:59 -0800


On Thursday 17 January 2002 11:12 pm, Jeff Newmiller wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Jan 2002, Rod Roark wrote:
> > Anyone know a good utility that will go through all allocated
> > memory blocks and tell you which process or executable is
> > responsible for each one?
> >
> > Yes I know about "ps".  I don't think it really does that.  Here's
> > my problem:
> >
> > When I start up my colo box, running ntpd, bind, sshd, postfix,
> > Courier pop3d/imapd, apache, postgresql, xvnc, one KDE session,
> > and some other normal stuff, "free" shows about 60 MB in use
> > (after subtracting buffers and cache).  After a day or two, memory
> > usage climbs to around 260MB and stays there.  If I stop VNC/KDE,
> > apache, all mail stuff and the sql server, memory in use still
> > stays over about 220 MB.
> >
> > So, what's using all that memory?  I'd like to find out.
> >
> > Total physical memory is 1GB.
>
> I didn't see if anyone came up with an answer for this one.
>
> Top, with the "M" command, would be my first thought.
>
> However, the problem may be associated with shared memory... try
> looking at "ipcs"?

Thanks Jeff.  Tell me what you make of the following.  I can't account for 
the memory usage... can you?


[rod@www rod]$ free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       1030016     993520      36496          0     440700     301620
-/+ buffers/cache:     251200     778816
Swap:      1204832        144    1204688

[rod@www rod]$ ipcs -mu

------ Shared Memory Status --------
segments allocated 5
pages allocated 8894
pages resident  171
pages swapped   0
Swap performance: 0 attempts     0 successes


And the following "top" snapshot:

  5:34am  up 2 days, 23:15,  1 user,  load average: 0.03, 0.01, 0.00
51 processes: 49 sleeping, 2 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states:  0.0% user,  0.0% system,  0.0% nice, 100.0% idle
Mem:  1030016K av,  974304K used,   55712K free,       0K shrd,  440700K buff
Swap: 1204832K av,     144K used, 1204688K free                  301612K cached

  PID USER     PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM   TIME COMMAND
 1838 apache     9   0  8712 8712  8092 S     0.0  0.8   0:00 httpd
 1963 apache    10   0  8700 8700  8076 S     0.0  0.8   0:00 httpd
 1966 apache    11   0  8580 8580  8076 S     0.0  0.8   0:00 httpd
 8410 root       9   0  8136 8136  7720 S     0.0  0.7   0:01 httpd
  820 xfs        9   0  4984 4976  1104 S     0.0  0.4   0:07 xfs
  668 named      9   0  4940 4940  2280 S     0.0  0.4   0:00 named
  670 named      9   0  4940 4940  2280 S     0.0  0.4   0:00 named
  671 named      9   0  4940 4940  2280 S     0.0  0.4   0:28 named
  672 named      9   0  4940 4940  2280 S     0.0  0.4   0:00 named
  673 named      9   0  4940 4940  2280 S     0.0  0.4   0:03 named
31084 root       9   0  2044 2020  1672 R     0.0  0.1   0:00 sshd
  613 ntp        9   0  1924 1924  1728 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 ntpd
31086 rod        9   0  1388 1388  1012 S     0.0  0.1   0:00 bash
  940 postfix    9   0  1252 1252   988 S     0.0  0.1   0:13 qmgr
  692 root       9   0  1204 1152  1020 S     0.0  0.1   0:02 sshd
 1011 postgres  13   5  1140 1140   952 S N   0.0  0.1   0:00 postmaster
 2389 rod        9   0  1068 1068   852 R     0.0  0.1   0:00 top
  726 root       9   0  1048 1012   844 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 xinetd
  938 root       7   0   868  868   720 S     0.0  0.0   0:04 master
 2275 postfix    9   0   832  832   700 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 pickup
32233 lucy       9   0   760  760   560 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 imapd
  947 root       9   0   696  684   612 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 authdaemond.pla
  948 root       9   0   696  684   612 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 authdaemond.pla
  952 root       9   0   696  684   612 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 authdaemond.pla
  953 root       9   0   696  684   612 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 authdaemond.pla
  954 root       9   0   696  684   612 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 authdaemond.pla
  767 root       0   0   676  676   588 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 crond
  964 root       8   0   640  632   552 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 couriertcpd
  981 root       8   0   636  628   548 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 couriertcpd
  510 root       9   0   604  604   504 S     0.0  0.0   0:12 syslogd
  515 root       9   0   596  596   452 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 klogd
  857 daemon     9   0   580  560   504 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 atd
  946 root       9   0   572  560   512 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 authdaemond.pla
    1 root       8   0   528  528   460 S     0.0  0.0   0:08 init
  590 root       8   0   524  524   460 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 apmd
  967 root       9   0   464  464   396 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 logger
 1031 root       9   0   456  456   388 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 mingetty
 1023 root       9   0   452  452   384 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 mingetty
 1024 root       9   0   452  452   384 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 mingetty
 1025 root       9   0   452  452   384 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 mingetty
 1026 root       9   0   452  452   384 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 mingetty
 1030 root       9   0   452  452   384 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 mingetty
  983 root       9   0   324  324   268 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 logger
    2 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00 keventd
    3 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00 kapm-idled
    4 root      19  19     0    0     0 SWN   0.0  0.0   0:00 ksoftirqd_CPU0
    5 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00 kswapd
    6 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00 bdflush
    7 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:06 kupdated
    8 root      -1 -20     0    0     0 SW<   0.0  0.0   0:00 mdrecoveryd
    9 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00 kreiserfsd


-- Rod