From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262098AbVGVOZZ (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 Jul 2005 10:25:25 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262099AbVGVOZZ (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 Jul 2005 10:25:25 -0400 Received: from clock-tower.bc.nu ([81.2.110.250]:46573 "EHLO localhost.localdomain") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262098AbVGVOZW (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 Jul 2005 10:25:22 -0400 Subject: Re: Kernel doesn't free Cached Memory From: Alan Cox To: Vinicius Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: <20050722_112730_062779.jdob@ig.com.br> References: <20050722_112730_062779.jdob@ig.com.br> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 15:49:49 +0100 Message-Id: <1122043789.9478.18.camel@localhost.localdomain> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.2.2 (2.2.2-5) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Gwe, 2005-07-22 at 08:27 -0300, Vinicius wrote: > Hi all! > > I have a server with 2 Pentium 4 HT processors and 32 GB of RAM, this > server runs lots of applications that consume lots of memory to. When I stop > this applications, the kernel doesn't free memory (the memory still in use) See any FAQ on the Linux memory management - memory is reclaimed when needed not when nobody is using it. That makes things more efficient. > and the server cache lots of memory (~27GB). When I start this applications, > the kernel sends "Out of Memory" messages and kill some random > applications. Some RHEL3 kernels had a problem with very large memory sizes and 2.4. That should not be the case in the current RHEL3 kernels. 2.6 handles very large systems a lot lot better, and of course the fact real computers now have 64bit processors has also rather improved life. Alan