[plug] Swap problems

[Craig Ringer]

> > I'm not sure exactly what the problem is.. but the machine is a web-server,
> > runs apache/mysql/sendmail/etc.. and it seems to halt every now and then not
> > showing any sites - and sometimes it goes down completely - CPU usage is not
> > THAT heavy usually, but the swap file tends to get filled up to 100% at the
> > exact times when the problem occurs

Hmm. Is your swap partion > amount of installed RAM? This is
particularly important with early 2.4 kernels.

Also it is possible you have an app running with a nasty memory leak.
Good candidates are mod-perl CGI scripts and other RAM-resident CGI,
zope apps, kppp (*arrggh*), others.

I've noticed that bugged PHP scripts can open _hundreds_ of parallel
persistant connections to a database resulting in memory nastiness.

Some X apps have memory leaks too. Good canidate is galeon which if you
use the same instance for weeks on end will expand your X11 server's RAM
use (shared memory I think) to breaking point, or so I find on Debian
(woody). Is the server running X?

Have you tried SSHing in and running top then hitting "M" to sort by RAM
use and seeing what processes are using up the most RAM/swap?

-- 
|  Craig Ringer
|  -- If it ain't broke, add features 'till it is
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 232 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.plug.org.au/pipermail/plug/attachments/20020520/2cded547/attachment.pgp>