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bgregorcy n00b
Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 61 Location: SLC
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Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 6:28 pm Post subject: Intel XEON & Top [SOLVED] |
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Hi I am seeing an odd issue with our Gentoo servers with the intel XEON processor. When I run `top` is shows that the machine is using almost 100% of the memory. Here is what the line looks like:
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Mem: 16432312k total, 15968200k used, 464112k free, 29784k buffers
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Free reports this:
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humboldt ~ # free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 16432312 15974760 457552 0 30440 15560136
-/+ buffers/cache: 384184 16048128
Swap: 2008116 32 2008084
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But everything seems fine, the server is responsive. The only reason I noticed it is that a sys admin from a different department brought it up that the same thing is happening on there servers. The only difference being they are running Red Hat (and I am sure a different kernel), and we are running Gentoo (kernel-2.6.24-gentoo-r
If anybody know has any idea why we would be interested in the answer.
Thanks for the help
Last edited by bgregorcy on Tue Feb 09, 2010 6:56 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Veldrin Veteran
Joined: 27 Jul 2004 Posts: 1945 Location: Zurich, Switzerland
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Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 7:21 pm Post subject: |
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Code: | total = used + free
used = eff.used + cached + buffered |
You got confused with what top regards as used. basically any non used memory is occupied (in the view of top).
But used may be really used (eff.used), cached or buffered.
To get back to your example:
total = 16432312k (16G)
free = 457552k (~450M)
used = 15974760k (~15.5G)
eff.used = 384184k (~380M)
cached = 15560136k (~15.1G)
buffered = 30440k (~30M)
and if you add those 3 numbers (eff.used + cached + buffered) you should end up with the same amount as used. (The numbers in brackets are not exact, but should give you some idea about the magnitude)
top itself is not that transparent. It misses the cached amount - which got you confused.
just my .02$
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bgregorcy n00b
Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 61 Location: SLC
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Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:25 pm Post subject: Xeon |
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But why are we not seeing the same issue on other CPU types, for example my desktop (Inter Core 2 Duo)
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Mem: 8192732k total, 2299708k used, 5893024k free, 23208k buffers
Swap: 4008208k total, 0k used, 4008208k free, 881776k cached
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harley # free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 8192732 2324148 5868584 0 23544 885664
-/+ buffers/cache: 1414940 6777792
Swap: 4008208 0 4008208
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No doubt about that |
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Veldrin Veteran
Joined: 27 Jul 2004 Posts: 1945 Location: Zurich, Switzerland
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Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 9:22 pm Post subject: |
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hmm...
have you noted, that the cached entry is on the swap line - can you confirm that for the Xeon System? (Just checked 2 Core2, a Athlon64 and an PentiumIII System - They all seem fine)
cheers
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bgregorcy n00b
Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 61 Location: SLC
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Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 9:34 pm Post subject: Xeon |
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yep this is what top looks like for me:
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Tasks: 242 total, 1 running, 241 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 0.0%us, 0.1%sy, 0.0%ni, 99.6%id, 0.2%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.1%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 16432312k total, 15696120k used, 736192k free, 72788k buffers
Swap: 2008116k total, 32k used, 2008084k free, 14969756k cached
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and free
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humboldt gregorcy # free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 16432312 15722504 709808 0 72896 14989576
-/+ buffers/cache: 660032 15772280
Swap: 2008116 32 2008084
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Is that what you were looking for? |
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bgregorcy n00b
Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 61 Location: SLC
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Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 9:39 pm Post subject: Cpu |
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This is the cpuinfo:
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humboldt gregorcy # cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 23
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5410 @ 2.33GHz
stepping : 6
cpu MHz : 2327.573
cache size : 6144 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 4
core id : 0
cpu cores : 4
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr dca sse4_1 lahf_lm
bogomips : 4658.67
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 38 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 23
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5410 @ 2.33GHz
stepping : 6
cpu MHz : 2327.573
cache size : 6144 KB
physical id : 1
siblings : 4
core id : 0
cpu cores : 4
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr dca sse4_1 lahf_lm
bogomips : 4655.22
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 38 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
processor : 2
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 23
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5410 @ 2.33GHz
stepping : 6
cpu MHz : 2327.573
cache size : 6144 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 4
core id : 1
cpu cores : 4
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr dca sse4_1 lahf_lm
bogomips : 4655.22
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 38 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
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Veldrin Veteran
Joined: 27 Jul 2004 Posts: 1945 Location: Zurich, Switzerland
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Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 9:42 pm Post subject: |
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yep - and they look exactly how they should....
And (I should have explained better) it is rather normal that the System uses all its available RAM (at least after some time). Caches and Buffers (don't ask for the exact difference) are used to keep data from the HDD in RAM to have faster access to it. So the speak, RAM is used for 2 applications: first to run a program (as in eff.used, check 2nd line in free) and second to cache/buffer data to be accessed faster.
On you Xeon System, most RAM is used for buffer/cache (some 15GB!) while a rather small amount is really needed to run apps (~380MB). In short, your Xeon System is not using all RAM (for running apps).
But it is true, that most RAM is occupied by some data.
I hope that clears it up a little.
cheers
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Mad Merlin Veteran
Joined: 09 May 2005 Posts: 1155
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bgregorcy n00b
Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 61 Location: SLC
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Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 9:58 pm Post subject: thx |
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Cool thanks for the help |
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linuxtuxhellsinki l33t
Joined: 15 Nov 2004 Posts: 700 Location: Hellsinki
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Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 6:54 pm Post subject: Re: thx |
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bgregorcy wrote: | Cool thanks for the help |
You should edit your 1st post's subject line and add [Solved] to it
MadMerlin: http://www.linuxatemyram.com/ Great link _________________ 1st use 'Search' & lastly add [Solved] to
the subject of your first post in the thread. |
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timeBandit Bodhisattva
Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 2719 Location: here, there or in transit
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