Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 13:38:49 -0400 (EDT) From: Seth <seth@freebie.dp.ny.frb.org> To: Ilya Balashov <tsw@inec.ru> Cc: Greg Quinlan <greg@qmpgmc.ac.uk>, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: RE: Memory leaks & kernel panic/reboot & ahc reboot Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9905191332530.4380-100000@freebie.dp.ny.frb.org> In-Reply-To: <NDBBKDAEHKFDJNIGJNPJCECFCCAA.tsw@inec.ru>
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> > I am starting to see a common thread....... I use the 'ahc' controller.
> >
> > This can easily be reproduced.....
> reproduce is too easy....
> reboot system...
> run "top"... and remember free memory...
> run "tar cvf /dev/null /usr"
> run "top" again... and almost all free memory LEAKED !!!!
>
This is NOT LEAKAGE. This is caching of the data in case you need it
again. If you don't, it will be reused!
Once again, "Inactive" is NOT "leaked". It's "well, we have some data
that you may need in the future, so we'll keep it around, but if you need
this memory for something else, we'll discard it."
To prove this, just run the following script (as a user with no memory
restrictions). What it will do is fill up all available memory,
reclaim "Inactive" memory, fill up swap, and then crash, freeing up
everything and causing all memory to be listed in the "free" output. Like
so:
Before:
Mem: 12M Active, 132M Inact, 19M Wired, 6952K Buf, 213M Free
Swap: 512M Total, 512M Free
After:
Mem: 4084K Active, 544K Inact, 18M Wired, 252K Cache, 7128K Buf, 353M Free
Swap: 512M Total, 15M Used, 496M Free, 3% Inuse
see?
the script:
#!/usr/bin/perl
# run at your own risk. Haven't had problems here, but YMMV.
push @a ,("a"x65536);
while (1) { push @a,@a;}
SB
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