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Message-ID: <b918cf3d0512121248w350633e5nc2e9db275be8ea7e@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 20:48:48 +0000
From: Mike Rylander <mrylander@gmail.com>
To: Will Glynn <wglynn@freedomhealthcare.org>
Subject: Re: Memory Leakage Problem
Cc: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, pgsql general <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
In-Reply-To: <439DDB49.3000905@freedomhealthcare.org>
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References: <c10e7feb0512060122u33a9c8eakb178525f3834b00@mail.gmail.com>
	<1133891282.11803.7.camel@state.g2switchworks.com>
	<c10e7feb0512061816o21305ac7n576694f2624dc6ed@mail.gmail.com>
	<1133991204.11803.43.camel@state.g2switchworks.com>
	<c10e7feb0512071825h30c93c00kdf5ea2a11e613f0b@mail.gmail.com>
	<b918cf3d0512071946m3cbfc630y679e0350a7f6b864@mail.gmail.com>
	<6353.1134016733@sss.pgh.pa.us>
	<b918cf3d0512080600q5c841fc8lecd96c3bad66cfdc@mail.gmail.com>
	<439DDB49.3000905@freedomhealthcare.org>

On 12/12/05, Will Glynn <wglynn@freedomhealthcare.org> wrote:
> Mike Rylander wrote:
>
> >Right, I can definitely see that happening.  Some backends are upwards
> >of 200M, some are just a few since they haven't been touched yet.
> >
> >
> >>Now, multiply that effect by N backends doing this at once, and you'll
> >>have a very skewed view of what's happening in your system.
> >>
> >
> >Absolutely ...
> >
> >>I'd trust the totals reported by free and dstat a lot more than summing
> >>per-process numbers from ps or top.
> >>
> >
> >And there's the part that's confusing me:  the numbers for used memory
> >produced by free and dstat, after subtracting the buffers/cache
> >amounts, are /larger/ than those that ps and top report. (top says the
> >same thing as ps, on the whole.)
> >
>
> I'm seeing the same thing on one of our 8.1 servers. Summing RSS from
> `ps` or RES from `top` accounts for about 1 GB, but `free` says:
>
>              total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
> Mem:       4060968    3870328     190640          0      14788     432048
> -/+ buffers/cache:    3423492     637476
> Swap:      2097144     175680    1921464
>
> That's 3.4 GB/170 MB in RAM/swap, up from 2.7 GB/0 last Thursday, 2.2
> GB/0 last Monday, or 1.9 GB after a reboot ten days ago. Stopping
> Postgres brings down the number, but not all the way -- it drops to
> about 2.7 GB, even though the next most memory-intensive process is
> `ntpd` at 5 MB. (Before Postgres starts, there's less than 30 MB of
> stuff running.) The only way I've found to get this box back to normal
> is to reboot it.
>
> >>>Now, I'm not blaming Pg for the apparent discrepancy in calculated vs.
> >>>reported-by-free memory usage, but I only noticed this after upgrading
> >>>to 8.1.
> >>>
> >>I don't know of any reason to think that 8.1 would act differently from
> >>older PG versions in this respect.
> >>
> >
> >Neither can I, which is why I don't blame it. ;)  I'm just reporting
> >when/where I noticed the issue.
> >
> I can't offer any explanation for why this server is starting to swap --
> where'd the memory go? -- but I know it started after upgrading to
> PostgreSQL 8.1. I'm not saying it's something in the PostgreSQL code,
> but this server definitely didn't do this in the months under 7.4.
>
> Mike: is your system AMD64, by any chance? The above system is, as is
> another similar story I heard.
>

It sure is.  Gentoo with kernel version 2.6.12, built for x86_64.=20
Looks like we have a contender for the common factor.   :)

> --Will Glynn
> Freedom Healthcare
>


--
Mike Rylander
mrylander@gmail.com
GPLS -- PINES Development
Database Developer
http://open-ils.org