From owner-freebsd-current@freebsd.org Sat Mar 12 08:38:40 2016 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C992EACDA63 for ; Sat, 12 Mar 2016 08:38:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gljennjohn@gmail.com) Received: from mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (mailman.ysv.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::50:5]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ABAE4F25 for ; Sat, 12 Mar 2016 08:38:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gljennjohn@gmail.com) Received: by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) id A6A91ACDA62; Sat, 12 Mar 2016 08:38:40 +0000 (UTC) Delivered-To: current@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A63D2ACDA61 for ; Sat, 12 Mar 2016 08:38:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gljennjohn@gmail.com) Received: from mail-wm0-x230.google.com (mail-wm0-x230.google.com [IPv6:2a00:1450:400c:c09::230]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (Client CN "smtp.gmail.com", Issuer "Google Internet Authority G2" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 3F09CF23 for ; Sat, 12 Mar 2016 08:38:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gljennjohn@gmail.com) Received: by mail-wm0-x230.google.com with SMTP id l68so44190072wml.1 for ; Sat, 12 Mar 2016 00:38:40 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=date:from:to:subject:message-id:reply-to:mime-version :content-transfer-encoding; bh=sojOPnn0smoOXS6PobKDehSEeLpPnxAovnQyWr1EuHU=; b=ZrYK2czfpsNR+rStsL7jsgv24wiAKn0AvoYdH7AApZiBXedV6bttq1i4rIfYDLZZw5 efMzNLQzsoDLyoUzSf5nRw82Q5oHb3IWMTGv/Swx3BxbK/hCN0s2F0VD/EP5hDR41fmz iEVWvHV3wpUXvs/2l9Ji7xUU0ho+p3ZoITMjpPXq5IKAfSeY54uB561m3NVpD0J15yMj x7U8fYwRK7es3VeYoilHwAvw3U/kYt5xN6UI5WHtVQKwrFnenr1ZUGWZ9WpjMd3wTlgL lsgZag11aZPKuO9jmtUnijDmLPnDhuHV9iAtnuki73g2B28CGeK5Fzqqc4Av8EOa0AnO 7lfQ== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20130820; h=x-gm-message-state:date:from:to:subject:message-id:reply-to :mime-version:content-transfer-encoding; bh=sojOPnn0smoOXS6PobKDehSEeLpPnxAovnQyWr1EuHU=; b=PDJONKY74N7fctpQz92ijoYQ80Xz3YSkcve2stwlD9FScdIZqZXMN/XzIOUI54vZ2a EtYVGVOhniYVZ6HD+9A96iXPd//QTGbT/fTh57TwSr5tG2cdkbnC2hKJWHtZX6dc2Ab+ lFZ2n8DV5wgtbl+f9aYiUL4gdagBgUqcDohQ70/uZ+eMB5buhCYb7FQEOzaQZl+pXuTs kKH2kwzkq9YZmFyoYuogbLjNQXcRcyGv8uws6vEYpL2kOY9O37nKTQ9jE1XpVq4Okqmg n0CR99LX3RLIodKIici4Xkplt0T7wIC8qQP8xYc0M1HQMb8qqB0ytFpMJSEWTSIPgvQ+ If+w== X-Gm-Message-State: AD7BkJJDuCAEyETf3tb9UpQeitxv0dNSyolNADHKTo/fUbPL9MqmbDD/uSMAvg2Vv85qRA== X-Received: by 10.194.172.3 with SMTP id ay3mr14046963wjc.155.1457771918679; Sat, 12 Mar 2016 00:38:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from ernst.home (p578E1562.dip0.t-ipconnect.de. [87.142.21.98]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id av3sm12110402wjc.44.2016.03.12.00.38.37 for (version=TLS1_2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Sat, 12 Mar 2016 00:38:38 -0800 (PST) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2016 09:38:35 +0100 From: Gary Jennejohn To: current@freebsd.org Subject: how to recycle Inact memory more aggressively? Message-ID: <20160312093835.727d7197@ernst.home> Reply-To: gljennjohn@gmail.com X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.13.2 (GTK+ 2.24.29; amd64-portbld-freebsd11.0) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2016 08:38:41 -0000 In the course of the last year or so the behavior of the vm system has changed in regard to how aggressively Inact memory is recycled. My box has 8GB of memory. At the moment I'm copying 100s of gigabytes from one file system to another one. Looking at top I observe that there are about 6GB of Inact memory. This value hardly changes. Instead of aggressively recycling the Inact memory the vm now seems to prefer to swap. Last year, can't rmember excatly when, the behavior was totally different. The vm very aggessively recycled Inact memory and, even when copying 100s of GB of files, the system hardly swapped. It seems rather strange to me that the vm happily allows gigbytes of Inact memory to be present and prefers swapping to recyclincg. Are there any sysctl's I can set to get the old behavior back? -- Gary Jennejohn