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Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 17:29:40 -0700
From: David Schultz <das@FreeBSD.ORG>
To: Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to>
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cc: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Broken memory management on system with no swap
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On Sat, Apr 19, 2003, Lucky Green wrote:
> There appears to be a memory management bug that affects systems without
> swap files. Processes are killed off due to the server being "out of
> swap space" even though top shows some 800MB of "inactive" memory
> available.

``Inactive'' just means that the page just hasn't been accessed
for a while and is a candidtate for replacement.  However, on a
system without swap, the system has nowhere to send the page if it
is dirty.  The only pages that can always be discarded and reused
are those in the ``Cache'' and ``Free'' categories.

So the bottom line is that you really are running out of memory.