Where'd my memory go???

[verruckt]

in sys info it shows hardly any memory left...

Total Memory 503960 kB
Free Memory 7020 kB


This server has 512mb of memory, only hosting aournd 15 sites, only a few of which are even remotely "active". I have never even hit close to 10% of my allotted bandwidth for this server. Is something maybe not releasing memory?

I also have a script that i setup, that monitors such things...

total used free
Mem: 503960 496956 7004
Swap: 1124344 105136 1019208
Total: 1628304 602092 1026212


I'm certainly no linux ninja, anyone have an idea how to track down whats hogging ram???

 

[sullise]

Probably the cache?

Mem: 1015924k av, 992984k used, 22940k free, 0k shrd, 53424k buff 749852k actv, 143148k in_d, 19648k in_c

That's mine...it's normal for linux to use all available memory.

 

[nobaloney]

I just wanted to add that linux's use of most available memory is to be able to manage it quickly when a process needs it.

For example linux caches a lot of directory reads in case the data is needed again, but if a new process requires it, linux will release it immediately.

Jeff

 

[verruckt]

ok, well i had this backwards then. i was always under the assumption that as soon as a process no longer "needed" the memory, it was released. thanks for the info

 

[nobaloney]

It is released. To the memory management system, so it still shows up as used.

It's just the way it is.

Jeff