From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1758116AbXIEQEc (ORCPT ); Wed, 5 Sep 2007 12:04:32 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1757512AbXIEQEQ (ORCPT ); Wed, 5 Sep 2007 12:04:16 -0400 Received: from smtp2.linux-foundation.org ([207.189.120.14]:38795 "EHLO smtp2.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1757342AbXIEQEP (ORCPT ); Wed, 5 Sep 2007 12:04:15 -0400 Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2007 09:03:32 -0700 From: Andrew Morton To: Gabriel C Cc: greg@kroah.com, j@fuster.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: sysfs_dir_cache growing out of control Message-Id: <20070905090332.27eae31f.akpm@linux-foundation.org> In-Reply-To: <46CE33DA.9010501@googlemail.com> References: <46CCD3DF.4080303@fuster.org> <46CD057C.3080106@fuster.org> <20070823095933.GA6742@kroah.com> <46CE29DA.60409@fuster.org> <20070824005429.GA32265@kroah.com> <46CE33DA.9010501@googlemail.com> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 2.2.4 (GTK+ 2.8.19; i686-pc-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 03:26:50 +0200 Gabriel C wrote: > Greg KH wrote: > > On Thu, Aug 23, 2007 at 08:44:10PM -0400, Joel Fuster wrote: > >> Greg KH wrote: > >>> On Wed, Aug 22, 2007 at 11:56:44PM -0400, Joel Fuster wrote: > >>>> Joel Fuster wrote: > >>>>> Hi, > >>>>> I am running 2.6.22.3. For reasons that escape me, over time (days) the > >>>>> sysfs_dir_cache, dentry, and inode_cache SLUB entries grow until they > >>>>> consume all the memory on my system, requiring a reboot. > >>> Hm, those items should consume all the memory, but it should be freed if > >>> you have memory pressure from other places. Does it cause the machine > >>> to lock up, or you just got scared when seeing them? > >> Right. The problem is that the memory never seems to get freed no matter > >> what I do. I've tried setting /proc/sys/vm/vfs_cache_pressure to 10000, > >> but after a few days all my programs are running out of swap and I have to > >> reboot to get things back to a usable state. > >> > >>> Oh, and does the same thing happen if you do not use SLUB, but rather > >>> the older SLAB? > >> OK I just rebuilt 2.6.22.3 with SLAB and I seem to be getting the same > >> result..obviously I haven't waited several days, but > >> sysfs_dir_cache/dentry/inode_cache grow continuously when scanbuttond is > >> running, and stop growing when it isn't. > > > > Do you have a pointer to the scanbuttond source code? I'll try to take > > a look at this tomorrow. > > that was a long day? > I guess this one : > > https://sourceforge.net/projects/scanbuttond/ I needed `setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/local/lib' to be able to run `scanbuttond -p 1000' and after a few minutes I'm seeing zero growth of /proc/spabinfo:sysfs_dir_cache over a few minutes, with 2.6.23-rc4. Perhaps it's a specific device driver?