From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Sep 18 0:17:57 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 134D837B401 for ; Wed, 18 Sep 2002 00:17:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from expers.aabc.dk (expers.aabc.dk [194.182.205.6]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CD6CA43E6A for ; Wed, 18 Sep 2002 00:17:54 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from pzw@aabc.dk) Received: by expers.aabc.dk with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) id ; Wed, 18 Sep 2002 09:20:17 +0200 Message-ID: From: pzw@aabc.dk To: isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Inactive memory in FreeBSD Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 09:20:16 +0200 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Hi there. I have a webserver running FreeBSD 4.5 with Apache 1.3.26, PHP 3.0.18, and MySQL 3.23.49. When I FTP to the server or compile stuff, the amount of Inactive memory goes up, which I guess is because it is used for disk cache. However, when I stop compiling/FTP, it don't release the memory, it stays inactive, and then when you compile or use FTP again, the server starts using swap space, which IMHO can't be very efficient, and I have to reboot the server in order to release the memory. I have 256MB in the server, and it only uses around 40MB initially, so there shouldn't be any problem, I don't run X or anything fancy on it either. I've seen this behavior on several of my FreeBSD servers, but never on my Sun Solaris 8 servers, they release the memory back to free memory when used. Why is this? And, is there any way to prevent it from happening? Best Regards, Peter To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message