Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 07:53:16 -0400 From: Jeremy Faulkner <gldisater@gldis.ca> To: pzw@aabc.dk Cc: isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Inactive memory in FreeBSD Message-ID: <20020918075316.A53039@constans.gldis.ca> In-Reply-To: <E01A200E2339D311AF7E00508B319A2B04C84710@expers.aabc.dk>; from pzw@aabc.dk on Wed, Sep 18, 2002 at 09:20:16AM %2B0200 References: <E01A200E2339D311AF7E00508B319A2B04C84710@expers.aabc.dk>
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On Wed, Sep 18, 2002 at 09:20:16AM +0200, pzw@aabc.dk wrote: > 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 This is how the vm subsystem is supposed to work. This is normal, this is good. Inactive memory is memory that currently has data (programs) stored in it, but that data is not currently being used (the programs are not currently running). If the data that is currently stored in the inactive memory is needed again (you run a program again), you don't have to load it off the hard drive. This is a good thing. You don't want to change this. The comparison to solaris is irrelevant, as they (solaris and FreeBSD) have different vm subsystems. -- Jeremy Faulkner http://www.gldis.ca To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message
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