From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Mikel Bauer Subject: Re: free memory usage Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 16:08:07 -0600 Sender: linux-admin-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <3EBC26C7.1010602@bridgeband.net> References: <200305091125.31946.unix@amigo.net.gt> <3EBBE98D.3090109@bridgeband.net> <200305091458.57370.unix@amigo.net.gt> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <200305091458.57370.unix@amigo.net.gt> List-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format="flowed" To: - Luis - Cc: linux-admin@vger.kernel.org Memory that is buffered or cached is not the same as being used. It is memory that was used before, freed, but with the possibility of being used again so as to speed up information retrieval. This memory is available to whatever needs it. There probably isn't a server in existance that doesn't cache a fair bit of memory (unless it was never used). - Luis - wrote: > And what about if the mem is being cached or buffered? what can i do about it? > can i free it? > > Thanks > > On Friday 09 May 2003 17:46, Mikel Bauer wrote: > >>Is memory still technically "full" (used), or is it cached? Usually the >>kernel is smart enough to fix problems like that, and will free memory >>that's no longer being referenced (memory leaks really only exist if an >>app is still running, the kernel wont take away memory from a running app) >> >>I would take a look at your /proc/meminfo, and see if most of the "used" >>memory is accounted for in the cache. > > -- Mikel Bauer