From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261501AbULFLPD (ORCPT ); Mon, 6 Dec 2004 06:15:03 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261502AbULFLPC (ORCPT ); Mon, 6 Dec 2004 06:15:02 -0500 Received: from ns1.enidan.ch ([217.8.216.11]:28123 "EHLO mail.local.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261501AbULFLOv convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Mon, 6 Dec 2004 06:14:51 -0500 From: Per Jessen To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: 2.4.28 - kswapd excessive cpu usage under heavy IO Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 12:14:48 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.5.4 Organization: n/a MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200412061214.48754.per@computer.org> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org (apologies if this is sent more than once) I've found similar incidences in the archives, but none that indicates that a solution was found. I'm seeing excessive cpu usage by kswapd on a 4way 500MHZ Xeon with 2GB RAM.  A find in a directory containing perhaps 6-700,000 files makes the box almost grind to a halt.  In 12days uptime, kswap has used 590:43.82, and during the find-exercise usually runs with 90-100% util. The file-system is 150GB with JFS117 on a software-RAID5 - not exactly optimal, I agree, but reasonably workable. I've read that 2.6 has significant improvements in this area, but upgrading is not currently an option.   All hints & suggestions much appreciated. -- Per Jessen, Zurich http://www.spamcek.com - let your spam stop here.