From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S263898AbTKZCIx (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:08:53 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263900AbTKZCIx (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:08:53 -0500 Received: from holomorphy.com ([199.26.172.102]:29116 "EHLO holomorphy") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S263898AbTKZCIw (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:08:52 -0500 Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 18:08:46 -0800 From: William Lee Irwin III To: Chris Petersen Cc: Linux-Kernel , Al Viro Subject: Re: PROBLEM: Blk Dev Cache causing kswapd thrashing Message-ID: <20031126020846.GE8039@holomorphy.com> Mail-Followup-To: William Lee Irwin III , Chris Petersen , Linux-Kernel , Al Viro References: <3FC3C3BC.CAEC23CA@synopsys.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <3FC3C3BC.CAEC23CA@synopsys.com> Organization: The Domain of Holomorphy User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.4i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 04:03:56PM -0500, Chris Petersen wrote: > The block device cache is causing kswapd thrashing, usually bringing > the system to a halt. > This problem has been reproduced on kernels as recent as 2.4.21. > In our application we deal with large (multi-GB) files on multi-CPU > 4GB platforms. While handling these files, the block device cache > allocates all remaining available memory (3.5G) up to the 4G > physical limit. Please try 2.4.23-rc5, and if that doesn't fix it, try 2.6.0-test10. AIUI both have page replacement improvements over 2.4.21. -- wli