From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Feb 17 13:12:14 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6DF3B16A4CE for ; Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:12:14 +0000 (GMT) Received: from shell.reiteration.net (82-34-179-228.cable.ubr01.sout.blueyonder.co.uk [82.34.179.228]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6709A43D46 for ; Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:12:13 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from lists@reiteration.net) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (helo=reiteration.net) by shell.reiteration.net with esmtp (Exim 4.44 (FreeBSD)) id 1D1lSM-000Ooa-N7 for freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG; Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:12:35 +0000 From: "John" To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:12:03 +0000 Message-Id: <20050217124921.M70242@reiteration.net> In-Reply-To: <200502151631.j1FGV5eA034048@lurza.secnetix.de> References: <20050215151712.M67335@reiteration.net> <200502151631.j1FGV5eA034048@lurza.secnetix.de> X-Mailer: Open WebMail 2.50 20050106 X-OriginatingIP: 192.168.1.2 (jfm) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-SA-Exim-Connect-IP: 127.0.0.1 X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: lists@reiteration.net X-SA-Exim-Scanned: No (on shell.reiteration.net); SAEximRunCond expanded to false Subject: Re: swapfile being eaten by unknown process X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:12:14 -0000 On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 17:31:05 +0100 (CET), Oliver Fromme wrote [snippage] > > You do not need more RAM. At most, a little more swap > space wouldn't hurt, but even that isn't strictly > necessary, given that only 18% of your swap are in use. > I'd start worrying if that number goes beyond 50%. I think I've sussed it. The top 10 processes always had perl. This system uses perl intensively, for openwebmail, spamassassin and clamav uses it as well but not to the extent of openwebmail. So I did some intensive openwebmail tasks like shifting mail directories around then reindexing them, whilst watching top and tailing /var/log/messages, and as the swap usage approached 99%, the messages log got spammed with a load of 'cannot allocate swap' or similar. It's not openwebmail's 'fault' per se, it's just that it needs more resources, and 256MB ram isn't really enough with the volume of mail this system gets. The way around it for now has been to make an auxilliary swap file of roughly the same size as the initial one. Now there's nearly a gig of swap, and it isn't complaining, though with more users I can see this being eaten up as well, unless I stick a lot more RAM in there. I think it's a tribute to the stability of freebsd generally that the system didn't fall over and die :) I know other *nix systems do under similar treatment. best regards, -- lists@reiteration.net