From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 27 23:59:26 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher AECDH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id D71D9995 for ; Wed, 27 May 2015 23:59:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bc979@lafn.org) Received: from zoom.lafn.org (zoom.lafn.org [108.92.93.123]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B3A6E3A4 for ; Wed, 27 May 2015 23:59:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bc979@lafn.org) Received: from [10.0.1.2] (static-71-177-216-148.lsanca.fios.verizon.net [71.177.216.148]) (authenticated bits=0) by zoom.lafn.org (8.14.7/8.14.9) with ESMTP id t4RNnrfv080718 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Wed, 27 May 2015 16:49:53 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from bc979@lafn.org) From: Doug Hardie Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Subject: Swap exhaustion Message-Id: <1CD13C1C-5344-4909-A061-F25FBB86AFF9@lafn.org> Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 16:49:52 -0700 To: FreeBSD - Mime-Version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 8.2 \(2098\)) X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.2098) X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.98 at zoom.lafn.org X-Virus-Status: Clean X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 23:59:26 -0000 I have a process that is eating up 6 GB of swap space. At that point, = FreeBSD 9.3 terminates a process. However, occasionally its not the one = eating up the space. When I manually quit the process then the swap = space returns to a few KB used. The system runs fine after that. I have very little knowledge of what this process is doing internally = but would like to know what might be causing this issue. There are 5 of = these processes running (parent plus 4 children). Normally each uses = about 90 MB RES/SIZE. However when the problem occurs they are about = 2GB RES/SIZE each. The system has 4 GB memory. I thought that a malloc = would not be able to grab that much memory, even with swapping as it has = to be in memory. Could a malloc cause this growth in process size or = need I look elsewhere?