From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261642AbUBVCgk (ORCPT ); Sat, 21 Feb 2004 21:36:40 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261646AbUBVCgk (ORCPT ); Sat, 21 Feb 2004 21:36:40 -0500 Received: from uslink-66.173.43-133.uslink.net ([66.173.43.133]:51840 "EHLO dingdong.cryptoapps.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261642AbUBVCgi (ORCPT ); Sat, 21 Feb 2004 21:36:38 -0500 Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 18:36:38 -0800 From: Chris Wedgwood To: Mike Fedyk Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Large slab cache in 2.6.1 Message-ID: <20040222023638.GA13840@dingdong.cryptoapps.com> References: <4037FCDA.4060501@matchmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4037FCDA.4060501@matchmail.com> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sat, Feb 21, 2004 at 04:50:34PM -0800, Mike Fedyk wrote: > I have 1.5 GB of ram in this system that will be a Linux Terminal > Server (but using Debian & VNC). There's 600MB+ anonymous memory, > 600MB+ slab cache, and 100MB page cache. That's after turning off > swap (it was 400MB into swap at the time). I have a similar annoying problem... I have a machine which is almost always idle (single user work station type thing) with 1.5GB of RAM and I end up with 850M in slab! For me the main problem seems to be driven by dentry_cache itself bloating up really big and those entries keep fs-specific memory pinned. Forcing paging will push this down to acceptable levels but it's a really irritating solution --- I'm still trying to think of a better way to stop the dentries from using such a disproportionate amount of memory. I'm played with -mm kernels and various patches out there... nothing seems to put enough pressure on the slab unless I force paging. akpm, riel --- any (more) ideas here?