Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!usc!wuarchive!bcm!rice!news From: an...@crysiris.rice.edu (Anand Kolatkar) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi Subject: Free memory seems low Message-ID: <1991Jan24.155817.22594@rice.edu> Date: 24 Jan 91 15:58:17 GMT Sender: n...@rice.edu (News) Organization: Rice University Lines: 18 I am wondering if the following situation is normal: I work on a 4D-20 (3.3.1) with 8M memory. When I login when noone else is logged on or running anything, osview shows only 1.2M of memory available (if I am logged in from a non console terminal) and 400-500K of memory when I login from the console. This is the free memory showed by osview. Is it normal to have only 1/8 of the memory available? Any answers would be appreciated. -- // Anand Kolatkar E-mail: an...@crysiris.rice.edu // // Rice University // // Dept. of Biochemistry and Cell Biology //
Path: gmdzi!unido!fauern!sun1.ruf.uni-freiburg.de!ira.uka.de! sol.ctr.columbia.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl! sgi!shinobu!odin!patton.wpd.sgi.com!jmb From: j...@patton.wpd.sgi.com (Jim Barton) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi Subject: Re: Free memory seems low Message-ID: <1991Jan29.022252.2860@odin.corp.sgi.com> Date: 29 Jan 91 02:22:52 GMT References: <1991Jan24.155817.22594@rice.edu> Sender: n...@odin.corp.sgi.com (Net News) Reply-To: j...@patton.wpd.sgi.com (Jim Barton) Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc. Lines: 32 In article <1991Jan24.155817.22...@rice.edu>, an...@crysiris.rice.edu (Anand Kolatkar) writes: > I work on a 4D-20 (3.3.1) with 8M memory. > > When I login when noone else is logged on or running anything, > osview shows only 1.2M of memory available (if I am logged in > from a non console terminal) and 400-500K of memory when I > login from the console. This is the free memory showed by osview. > > Is it normal to have only 1/8 of the memory available? > > Any answers would be appreciated. The "Free" line for memory is the amount of memory that currently has no valid data. In 3.3 and later systems, all of memory is treated as a cache. All of the memory which is specified as "Userdata" is available as well. This memory can in general be stolen immediately, since there is a valid copy of it on backing store. The only memory unavailable for the user is "Locked" (typically kernel, but can include memory locked using plock(2) or mpin(2)), "Sysdata" (process specific data) and "Delwri" (memory on the way to disk). The gr_osview(1) man page describes these things in gory detail, and the information applies equally to osview(1). My guess is that 5-6MB of memory is actually available with Userdata and Free added together. -- Jim Barton Silicon Graphics Computer Systems j...@sgi.com
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!munnari.oz.au!goanna!minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au!godzilla!mg From: mg@ (Mike Gigante) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi Subject: Re: Free memory seems low Message-ID: <mg.665224839@godzilla> Date: 30 Jan 91 08:40:39 GMT References: <1991Jan24.155817.22594@rice.edu> <1991Jan29.022252.2860@odin.corp.sgi.com> Sender: rxx...@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Greg Farrelly) Organization: RMIT Computer Centre, Melbourne Australia. Lines: 99 j...@patton.wpd.sgi.com (Jim Barton) writes: >In article <1991Jan24.155817.22...@rice.edu>, an...@crysiris.rice.edu >(Anand Kolatkar) writes: >> I work on a 4D-20 (3.3.1) with 8M memory. >> >> When I login when noone else is logged on or running anything, >> osview shows only 1.2M of memory available (if I am logged in >> from a non console terminal) and 400-500K of memory when I >> login from the console. This is the free memory showed by osview. >> >> Is it normal to have only 1/8 of the memory available? >> >> Any answers would be appreciated. > [ .. details on gr_osview and disk buffers etc] >My guess is that 5-6MB of memory is actually available with Userdata and >Free added together. >-- Jim Barton > Silicon Graphics Computer Systems > j...@sgi.com Well, I don't think that is right. Here is a 'ps -el' run on a PI here in a typical login session. I have 3 wsh's (1 rlogin to server, two local), a clock, calendar and the X calculator. Not extravagant by any means and pretty typical around here. [hedora.cgl.rmit.oz.au, ps -el, 4D25G, 16Mb memory, 200Mb system disk, all user files NFS mounted from server (4D/220, 2.4Gb disk)] F S UID PID PPID C PRI NI P SZ:RSS WCHAN TTY TIME COMD 39 S 0 0 0 0 0 20 * 0:0 80108c50 ? 0:00 sched 30 S 0 1 0 0 39 20 * 31:18 80109228 ? 0:27 init 39 S 0 2 0 0 0 20 * 0:0 801051e0 ? 0:00 vhand 39 S 0 3 0 0 20 20 * 0:0 80109548 ? 0:09 bdflush 30 S 0 3786 1 0 26 20 * 66:58 80108c20 console 0:01 grcond 30 S 0 100 1 0 26 24 * 35:35 80108c20 ? 0:01 portmap 30 S 0 203 1 0 28 20 * 40:24 80109228 ttyd1 0:00 getty 30 S 0 35 1 0 26 20 * 48:44 80108c20 ? 0:01 syslogd 30 S 903 4037 4036 0 39 20 * 52:28 80109228 ttyq1 0:01 csh 30 S 0 93 1 0 26 20 * 46:24 80108c20 ? 0:42 routed 30 S 9 180 1 0 26 20 * 47:33 801e1cc0 ? 0:00 lpsched b0 S 0 110 1 0 26 20 * 0:0 80109480 ? 0:00 nfsd 30 S 0 112 110 0 26 20 * 0:0 80109480 ? 0:00 nfsd 30 S 0 113 110 0 26 20 * 0:0 80109480 ? 0:00 nfsd 30 S 0 114 110 0 26 20 * 0:0 80109480 ? 0:00 nfsd 30 S 0 115 1 0 26 20 * 0:0 80126f70 ? 0:00 biod 30 S 0 116 1 0 26 20 * 0:0 80126f70 ? 0:00 biod 30 S 0 117 1 0 26 20 * 0:0 80126f70 ? 0:00 biod 30 S 0 118 1 0 26 20 * 0:0 80126f70 ? 0:01 biod 30 S 0 126 1 0 26 20 * 42:39 80108c20 ? 0:01 inetd b0 S 0 131 1 0 +30 20 * 45:25 ? 0:00 timeslav 30 S 0 136 1 0 26 20 * 118:83 80109480 ? 0:19 rwhod 30 S 903 4062 4037 0 26 20 * 222:190 80108c20 ttyq1 0:02 xcalc 30 S 903 3803 3797 0 39 20 * 52:28 80109228 console 0:00 csh 30 S 0 185 1 0 26 20 * 65:30 80108c20 ? 0:00 lpd 30 S 0 176 1 0 26 24 * 174:122 8010941c ? 0:01 sendmail 30 S 0 195 1 0 26 20 * 49:28 80b64b58 ? 0:19 cron 30 S 903 3797 3786 0 26 10 * 279:94 80108c20 console 0:11 wsh 30 S 903 4036 1 15 26 10 * 270:86 80108c20 ? 0:03 wsh 30 S 0 3792 3786 3 26 20 * 635:490 80108c20 console 0:30 news_ser 30 S 903 3816 1 0 26 20 * 459:249 80108c20 console 0:02 Xsgi 30 S 903 4046 1 0 26 10 * 50:50 80108c20 ? 0:00 wsh 30 S 903 4057 1 1 26 20 * 33:33 807be85c ttyq2 0:00 clock b0 S 903 3820 3803 0 28 20 * 29:29 80109638 console 0:01 rlogin 30 S 903 3821 3820 0 26 20 * 30:30 80109480 console 0:01 rlogin 30 S 903 3817 3816 0 26 20 * 97:53 8073901c console 0:00 Xsgi 30 S 903 4047 4046 0 28 20 * 52:28 80109638 ttyq2 0:00 csh 30 R 903 4066 4037 10 64 20 0 36:36 ttyq1 0:00 ps 30 S 903 4055 1 0 26 20 * 97:33 80813bbc ttyq2 0:00 ical A little calculation shows that the total virtual memory utilized is 2915 pages = 11.66Mb, working set size (real memory used) is 2020 pages = 8.08Mb On a 8Mb machine, a larger portion of the total virtual space would be paged out. I can confirm that on an 8Mb PI (this machine used to be 8Mb), Any compilations would start serious paging in this environment, applications did little else besides page. In any case, Jim Barton's estimate seems *way* off... (to be fair, NeWS and X are major offenders - maybe Jim wasn't including those when he should have (at least NeWS)) What I would like to know is why 3 "wsh" windows should take a total of 601 pages (2.4Mb) of virtual memory? Doesn't it use the shared libraries? Even xterm uses less than half the space of wsh!!! Mike Gigante, ACGC Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology m...@godzilla.cgl.rmit.oz.au
Path: gmdzi!unido!fauern!ira.uka.de!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!caen!sdd.hp.com! elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!sgi!shinobu!odin!patton.wpd.sgi.com!jmb From: j...@patton.wpd.sgi.com (Jim Barton) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi Subject: Re: Free memory seems low Message-ID: <1991Jan30.160150.6467@odin.corp.sgi.com> Date: 30 Jan 91 16:01:50 GMT References: <1991Jan24.155817.22594@rice.edu> <1991Jan29.022252.2860@odin.corp.sgi.com> <mg.665224839@godzilla> Sender: n...@odin.corp.sgi.com (Net News) Reply-To: j...@patton.wpd.sgi.com (Jim Barton) Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc. Lines: 29 Having started life a long time ago as a kernel hacker, memory that isn't allocated to the kernel in some way is "free", i.e., I (the kernel) can go get it and use it for something else. So, I automatically calculated the available space as that the kernel wasn't using for something or hadn't been locked down. It's quite correct that the memory is full of data and text for running programs. Most of the time, alot of that memory isn't in use, since daemons sleep most of the time, biod and nfsd daemons always execute in the kernel, and working sets are in general much smaller than the actual program size (there, I did it again. "in use" means that some program has executed instructions or touched data on that page in the recent past). The kernel doesn't bother with these pages unless it needs the memory for something else. "Mr. VM" Mike Thompson says that one thing he does to find out how much memory is really "free" is to run a program which simply touches data larger than physical memory. This causes most other pages to be paged out and allocated to that program. The program then exits, and if you look quick before any daemons or window managers or other things run than that memory will be totally "free". In general, the kernel doesn't run the paging daemon (called 'vhand' in a ps listing) unless memory gets tight, and it quits when a certain minimum number of pages have been made available. This avoids any paging system overhead unless you really need to page. -- Jim Barton Silicon Graphics Computer Systems j...@sgi.com