Re: Pauses in 2.5.44 (some kind of memory policy change?)

Adam J. Richter
2002-10-27T21:22:07Z

Andrew Morton wrote:
>"Adam J. Richter" wrote:
>>
>> I run /usr/bin/mail to read my mail box file, which has about
>> 24 megabytes (in 2300 messages, mostly spam). After this, about half
>> of the time, my keyboard and mouse will intermittently stop responding
>> for a second or two, maybe one or two times, and then everything
>> seems to be OK. This happens *after* the mail spool has been read.
>> This did not happen in previous kernels (well, maybe 2.5.43, I can't
>> quite be sure about that one).
>>
>> The mail spool is on NFS, but I suspect the culprit might be
>> some kind of memory balancing change in 2.5.44.
>>

>Clean pagecache usually doesn't cause much trouble...

>Please send a `vmstat 1' trace which covers the episode.

Here are two traces. Also, thanks for your help in pointing out
the new version of procps at surriel.com/procps.

procs memory swap io system cpu
r b w swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id
0 0 0 0 52160 31420 135796 0 0 1 9 91 40 0 0 99
0 0 0 0 52156 31420 135796 0 0 0 28 1054 267 1 1 98
0 0 0 0 52156 31420 135796 0 0 0 0 1043 159 1 1 98
1 0 2 0 45252 31420 142520 0 0 0 0 3573 349 9 38 53

...Started /usr/bin/mail around here...

1 0 2 0 30024 31420 157636 0 0 0 0 6540 510 20 80 0
1 0 2 0 14908 31420 172544 0 0 0 0 6433 499 16 84 0
3 0 2 0 9196 31420 178172 0 0 0 17152 6939 259 3 97 0
1 0 1 0 2452 31420 185112 0 0 0 4056 4061 278 9 91 0
0 0 0 0 2636 31420 184848 0 0 0 0 1294 195 2 6 92

...Pause occurred around here...

1 0 1 0 2664 31420 184848 0 0 0 4004 1766 55 0 44 56
0 0 0 0 2676 31420 184848 0 0 0 40 1103 282 2 3 95
0 0 0 0 2676 31420 184848 0 0 0 0 1064 169 0 0 100
0 0 0 0 2676 31420 184848 0 0 0 0 1082 225 1 1 98
0 0 0 0 2676 31420 184848 0 0 0 0 1097 263 1 1 98

Here is another run:

procs memory swap io system cpu
r b w swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id
0 0 0 0 3992 30860 180424 0 0 1 9 92 40 0 0 99
0 0 0 0 3988 30860 180424 0 0 0 0 1069 267 1 2 97
0 0 0 0 3988 30860 180424 0 0 0 0 1032 136 1 0 99
2 0 1 0 2464 29912 182696 0 0 4 380 1121 229 18 19 63
2 0 3 0 4548 24556 185780 0 0 0 4732 1983 206 26 74 0
3 0 1 0 4572 24532 185780 0 0 0 10172 2696 46 1 99 0
0 0 0 0 3000 23460 188292 0 0 0 640 1160 248 12 18 70
...Pause occurred here...
2 0 1 0 3348 23460 188292 0 0 0 9412 3409 109 0 58 41
0 0 0 0 3352 23460 188292 0 0 0 4 1036 147 1 2 97
0 0 0 0 3352 23460 188292 0 0 0 0 1032 153 0 1 99
0 0 0 0 3352 23460 188292 0 0 0 0 1014 105 1 0 99
1 0 0 0 3352 23460 188292 0 0 0 0 1089 435 1 1 98