SUMMARY: still-dwindling swap space

From: Gregory A. Parmer (Gregory.A.Parmer@acenet.auburn.edu)
Date: Fri Jul 17 1992 - 04:58:11 CDT


I still haven't found a proper patch, but the very first response I received
was dead on, even in on my limited info. A list of summarized responses
is included.

Use "ps aux" to see what process is growing. It turns out to be "xnews"
in our case. Even a slow typist can make xnews consume large amounts of
swap space **very** quickly in Frame.

I've tried the following "memory leak" related patches with no
improvement.
Patch-ID# 100444-12 OpenWindows V3.0 xnews Server Patch 3000-18
Patch-ID# 100444-19 Openwindows V3.0 Server Patch 3000-28
Patch-ID# 100452-12 XView/3.0 CTE Jumbo Patch
Patch-ID# 100512-02 OpenWindows V3: libXt CTE Jumbo Patch

Other suggestions and/or updates on the state of xnews patches are
most welcomed as the problem lingers on.

-Greg

===============================================================================
Gregory A. Parmer |INTERNET: gparmer@acenet.auburn.edu
Computing Applications Specialist |VOICE: (205) 844-9660
Alabama Cooperative Extension Service |FAX: (205) 844-3501
Auburn University, AL 36849-5646 |
===============================================================================

--
Special thanks to:
stern@sunne.East.Sun.COM (Hal Stern - NE Area Systems Engineer)
Piete.Brooks@cl.cam.ac.uk
birger@vest.sdata.no (Birger A. Wathne)
bernards@ECN.NL (Marcel Bernards)
jipping@phoebus.larc.nasa.gov (Mike Jipping)
kuhn@math.harvard.edu (Robert M. Kuhn)
baumann@proton.llumc.edu (Michael Baumann)
Mike Raffety <miker@sbcoc.com>
Peter Shipley <shipley@tfs.COM>
Perry_Hutchison.Portland@xerox.com
kalli!kevin@fourx.Aus.Sun.COM (Kevin Sheehan {Consulting Poster Child})
blymn@awadi.com.AU (Brett Lymn)
----- 
run ps -agux every 10 minutes or so, and see what process is growing
and consuming the swap space.

if it's openwindows/xnews, i think there's a patch for a memory leak in it..... ----- > As a user stays logged in to one of our SS1+ clients, the amount of > swap space is steadily reduced until OpenWindows crashes. * Find out which programs are using up the VM ....

> Automounter consumes a steady, increasing percentage of memory. > Coinciding with this is the consumption of swap space as well." * Use amd .... ----- As you run with tmpfs, it could be that something fills up /tmp, thus using all available memory. ----- We have encountered the same thing by a user running OW2 and and a Sunview smalltalk environment. Somehow there must be some memory leak with this combination of application. Particulary the smalltalk interpreter consumes a huge amount of memory as it runs. After 2 days nothing more can be done within smalltalk.

No solution found yet :-( ----- I note you use TMPFS --> placing /tmp onto the swap partition. As your swap space dwindles, check /tmp -- is it growing? If so, this is probably your problem... ----- You've probably considered this, but since you are using tmpfs, /tmp will steadily occupy more nad more of the swap space. Do you know this is not the cause? ----- I would take a wild guess, and say that framemaker is not removing all of its files from /tmp, which you have mounted as tmpfs - So it gets it's space from swap. I am not sure but I think that tmpfs does not free its memory when the FS shrinks - but I could be wrong. ----- Core leak.... Also OpenLook is a fat pig you will be better off runing MIT X11R5 since it uses less memory and runs at least twice as fast. ----- Perhaps tmpfs? Try not using it for /tmp and see what happens. ----- Sounds like you have a "memory leak" there are some bugs with some of the OW3 libraries that cause memory leaks. Get the following patches and see if they help:

100452-10 xv_destroy frame memory leak 100452-10 Memory leak in PANEL_CHOICE items 100452-10 Textsw leaks memory after textsw_reset() 100512-02 XtAddWorkProc Memory Leak

----------------------------- Original Message ------------------------ > > As a user stays logged in to one of our SS1+ clients, the amount of > swap space is steadily reduced until OpenWindows crashes. Memory > intensive programs seem to exaggerate the problem, and it is occuring > most frequently when running FrameMaker (OpenLook Version) with > Newsprint 2.0. > > More info below: > > Configuration--> > Server: > Sun 4/690 > SunOS 4.1.2 > Relevant Patches > 100444-03 OpenWin Server Patche > 100451-02 OLIT/3.0 : CTE Jumbo Patch > > Clients: > Sun 1, 1+ > 16MB RAM > 104M drives > Current partition table (original sd0): > partition a - starting cyl 0, # blocks 21000 (100/0/0) > partition b - starting cyl 100, # blocks 64050 (305/0/0) > partition c - starting cyl 0, # blocks 204540 (974/0/0) > partition d - starting cyl 0, # blocks 0 (0/0/0) > partition e - starting cyl 0, # blocks 0 (0/0/0) > partition f - starting cyl 0, # blocks 0 (0/0/0) > partition g - starting cyl 405, # blocks 119490 (569/0/0) > partition h - starting cyl 0, # blocks 0 (0/0/0) > > Filesystem kbytes used avail capacity Mounted on > /dev/sd0a 9699 6953 1777 80% / > /dev/sd0g 55696 45222 4905 90% /usr > swap 26332 0 26332 0% /tmp > > SunOS 4.1.2 > OpenWindows v3.0 > NewsPrint 2.0 > FrameMaker v3.1A > Relevant Patches > 100505-01 Zero length dir can be left > 100507-01 tmpfs fix > 100516-01 increase HEAPBYTES to prevent.. > > Tried the following patch on 2 of the machines with no luck: > 100249-02 automount symbolic link timeout > One of the bug descriptions sounded like our troubles > "Bug 1044048 > > Automounter consumes a steady, increasing percentage of memory. > Coinciding with this is the consumption of swap space as well." > But the patch didn't change the condition. > > ------ > Has anyone else experienced such a problem..and found a cure for it? > > thanks, > Greg >

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