Re: Server REALLY slow after console messages

[Carl Fink <carl@finknetwork.com>]

On Tue, Jun 27, 2006 at 11:02:39PM -0400, Derek Martin wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 27, 2006 at 05:24:02PM -0400, Carl Fink wrote:
> > You're out of memory, just like the messages say.  Presumably some process
> > on that server has used it all, including all your swap.  Eventually the
> > process should be killed automatically or the program might segfault.  If
> > you can get on as root and stay on long enough to type some commands, you
> > could do:
> > 
> > 	dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/spool/swapfile bs=1024 count=262144
> > 
> > 	swapon /var/spool/swapfile
> 
> Realistically, this isn't likely to help...  He's already used up 5GB
> of virtual memory -- 2GB of RAM and 3 GB of swap space.  At such a
> point, the problem is the system is thrashing the swap disk... that
> is, it is trying to rapidly pull processes back from swap space as the
> kernel changes context between all the runable processes.  

I wasn't suggesting it as a long-term solution, just an attempt to buy a few
minutes of responsiveness in which to kill the exploding process.

Hmm ... depending on how the offending process starts, ulimit might be a way
to prevent future memory ballooning.
-- 
Carl Fink                                   carl@finknetwork.com
   "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your
   government when it deserves it."
                      - Mark Twain