Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:13:12 -0500 From: FreeBSD <freebsd@optiksecurite.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Simple swap question Message-ID: <494AAED8.2020809@optiksecurite.com> In-Reply-To: <20081218171135.GF5150@torus.slightlystrange.org> References: <494A693A.5050204@optiksecurite.com> <200812181028.18306.kirk@strauser.com> <20081218163632.GE5150@torus.slightlystrange.org> <494A820E.2030907@optiksecurite.com> <20081218171135.GF5150@torus.slightlystrange.org>
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Daniel Bye a écrit : > On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 12:02:06PM -0500, FreeBSD wrote: >> Daniel Bye a ?crit : >>> On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 10:28:18AM -0600, Kirk Strauser wrote: >>>> On Thursday 18 December 2008 09:16:10 FreeBSD wrote: >>>>> Hi everyone, >>>>> >>>>> I have a FreeBSD 7.0-Release server that started to swap after an error >>>>> in a shell script (process spawning competition ;-) ). I killed the >>>>> shell and the RAM is now OK. The problem is that the swap is still used. >>>>> How can I "reset" the swap? >>>> You don't. The system will handle it for you, I promise. :-) >>> And very well, too. >>> >>> You can prompt it to move pages back into RAM if you start using a swapped- >>> out process again - say, for example, a quiescent word processor had been >>> swapped out, you could get it back by raising it and starting to type. >>> >>> But as Kirk said, there really is no need. It's one of the kernel's many >>> jobs, and I'm inclined to leave it get on with it! >>> >>> Dan >>> >> Thanks for your answer. I'm asking here because it's been several days >> and there is still used swap for data that should never be used anymore. >> If the kernel wants to keep it, why not move it to RAM now that there is >> some free? > > Because it has swapped out an entire process, which hasn't subsequently > been woken up again. It's you that says the data are never going to be > needed again - the kernel doesn't know that, so keeps the pages there in > swap until you either reawaken the process, or kill it, at which point > the swap space they occupied will be freed up. > > You can see which processes are swapped out in top - the process name is > in parentheses. If it is irking you sufficiently, you can kill the > processes and reclaim your swap ;-) > > Dan > I can't see any process within parentheses in top... I also looked at the -f option of ps but the process that caused the swapping are not listed. Thanks for helping me clarify this. Martin
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