RedHat eating all of my ram - is it normal?

[Guest klinger2004]

Hi - It seems that I ask a lot of questions... I apologize - there's so much I wish to learn.

 

I have RedHat 9 installed - the latest updates (including kernel 2.4.20-20.9). My system monitor shows Im using 490 mb of my system ram (512mb) - the 'Process Listing' accounts for roughly 122 mbs of that. Where is the other 368 mb at? Is it just allocated to RH so that it does not use the swap until it HAS to? My swap shows 24.5 mb of 2 GB (I gave my swap 2 gb because I plan on adding another 512 mb of ram next week). If this is ok - then that's fine, but I've noticed that Mandrake and SuSE wern't touching much more than 200 mb of my ram. Keep in mind that I am not running any http servers etc (that I know of ;) ) - this was a "Personal" Install of RH9 - just the basics, really.

 

Also, am I right in assuming that when I add ram to my system, Linux will automatically pick up on it? or are there any special steps I need to take for this?

 

Thanks - everybody has been a lot of help!

 

Eric

[jlc]

What does

 

#free -m

 

show? Monitors aren't always correct. Your new ram should pickup just fine.

[tyme]

Linux cache's memory, and often RAM monitors don't seperate cached memory from "in use" memory. So often it appears that it's using more memory than it actually is...

[Guest klinger2004]

[eric@x1-6-00-50-8d-4a-0c-b9 eric]$ free -m

                   total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached

Mem:           501        476         24          0           80            229

-/+ buffers/cache:     167         334

Swap:          2000      24           1975

[eric@x1-6-00-50-8d-4a-0c-b9 eric]$

 

 

 

I am assuming that this shows 334 md free? Im surprised my swap got hit at all - today was actually the first time I've seen a figure in my swap - maybe because I just started using VMware Worstation?

 

At any rate - some may disagree - but second to Mandrake, RedHat seems to run quite nicely in aspects off speed etc (using Gnome) - not to mention that I have become quite used to it. Now that I want to start using vmware workstation (so I can use Macromedia Studio MX and others without a dual boot) I figured it would be benificial to ssssqqqquuuueeeeeze every bit of ram I can. Just using Win XP before - with all of my apps installed and running (ex - Photoshop) was hitting my ram at 300+ (with a nice sized project opened) - So, although I never thopught it to really be an issue - this issue of ram has now come to my attention because of the possibility of using VMWare on a regular basis.

 

Tyme - that's what I was 'hoping' to hear - I suppose this is the case.. ?

Thanks for the reply.

[bvc]

Have you looked for unnecessary services. RH runs a lot more mem eaters at boot.

 

Also, a run of all cron jobs can eat everything up as well.

[Guest klinger2004]

I've checked out my services - I'm just not sure what they all do - I know there is a brief description of each - but it's very brief. Anyone know of a link I can check some out? At any rate - here are services I disables (I think I know what they do - soooo....)

 

apmd

atd

nfslock

portmap

rawdevices

sgi-fam

 

These are once I did not disable - but would like to know more about...

 

cups (I know it's for printing - but do I actually use it? I have a Cannon BJC6000 Ink Jet and I use whatever default RH has set up to print)

anacron

crond

isdn

sendmail (? - I use Evolution with my cable internet connection)

xinetd

 

I have RedHat 9, I use the internet (cable connection through an onboard nic), check email, gnucash, open office, K3B, gaim, I use vmware (WinXP), and I mounted 2 fat32 partitions. do I need any of these services?

 

Not sure if its the services I disabled (rebooted afterwards) but now I'm using 279mb instead of the 480 it said this morning and 0 of my swap - this is all according to sys mon, not using $free -m which states that some is not in use (it says ....

 

[eric@x1-6-00-50-8d-4a-0c-b9 eric]$ free -m

total used free shared buffers cached

Mem: 501 280 221 0 17 138

-/+ buffers/cache: 124 377

Swap: 2000 0 2000

[eric@x1-6-00-50-8d-4a-0c-b9 eric]$

 

 

 

this is dramatically different (again after turning off just a few services and rebooting).

 

Is there a way to see what resources the services are using?

 

Thanks!!!

[bvc]

apmd

Summary: Advanced Power Management (APM) BIOS utilities for laptops.

 

Description: APMD is a set of programs for controlling the Advanced Power Management daemon and utilities found in most modern laptop computers. APMD can watch your notebook's battery and warn users when the battery is low. APMD is also capable of shutting down the PCMCIA sockets before a suspend.

You probably aren't using acpi on RH9, so I'd enable apmd

atd=at

Summary: Job spooling tools.

 

Description: At and batch read commands from standard input or from a specified file. At allows you to specify that a command will be run at a particular time (now or a specified time in the future).  Batch will execute commands when the system load levels drop to a particular level.  Both commands use /bin/sh to run the commands.

 

You should install the at package if you need a utility that will do time-oriented job control.  Note: you should use crontab instead, if it is a recurring job that will need to be repeated at the same time every day/week/etc.

I'd disable atd.

 

I also enable portmap and sgi-fam (fam on mdk)

 

cups? If you print, you're using it. There're alternatives but cups is the most convenient/easiest, so IMO the best.

 

anacron

Summary: A cron-like program that doesn't go by time

 

Description: Anacron (like `anac(h)ronistic') is a periodic command scheduler.  It executes commands at intervals specified in days.  Unlike cron, it does not assume that the system is running continuously.  It can therefore be used to control the execution of daily, weekly and monthly jobs (or anything with a period of n days), on systems that don't run 24 hours a day.  When installed and configured properly, Anacron will make sure that the commands are run at the specified intervals as closely as machine-uptime permits.

 

This package is pre-configured to execute the daily jobs of the Mandrake system. You should install this program if your system isn't powered on 24 hours a day to make sure the maintenance jobs of other Mandrake packages are executed each day.

 

isdn? If you're cable -->NIC, disable it.

sendamail? Evo doesn't use it....disable

xinetd

[root@localhost root]# urpmf --summary --description xinetd

xinetd:summary:Xinetd is a powerful replacement for inetd.

xinetd:description:xinetd is a powerful replacement for inetd.

xinetd has access control machanisms, extensive logging capabilities,

the ability to make services available based on time, and can place

limits on the number of servers that can be started, among other things.

 

xinetd has the ability to redirect TCP streams to a remote host and

port. This is useful for those of that use ip masquerading, or NAT,

and want to be able to reach your internal hosts.

 

xinetd also has the ability to bind specific services to specific

interfaces. This is useful when you want to make services available

for your internal network, but not the rest of the world.  Or to have

a different service running on the same port, but different interfaces.

samba-server:description:

Samba-server provides a SMB server which can be used to provide

network services to SMB (sometimes called "Lan Manager")

clients. Samba uses NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NetBT) protocols

and does NOT need NetBEUI (Microsoft Raw NetBIOS frame)

protocol.

 

Samba-2.2 features working NT Domain Control capability and

includes the SWAT (Samba Web Administration Tool) that

allows samba's smb.conf file to be remotely managed using your

favourite web browser. For the time being this is being

enabled on TCP port 901 via xinetd. SWAT is now included in

it's own subpackage, samba-swat.

 

Users are advised to use Samba-2.2 as a Windows NT4

Domain Controller only on networks that do NOT have a Windows

NT Domain Controller. This release does NOT as yet have

Backup Domain control ability.

 

Please refer to the WHATSNEW.txt document for fixup information.

This binary release includes encrypted password support.

 

Please read the smb.conf file and ENCRYPTION.txt in the

docs directory for implementation details.

proftpd:description:ProFTPd is an enhanced FTP server with a focus toward simplicity, security,

and ease of configuration.  It features a very Apache-like configuration

syntax, and a highly customizable server infrastructure, including support for

multiple 'virtual' FTP servers, anonymous FTP, and permission-based directory

visibility.

 

This version supports both standalone and xinetd operation.

rsh-server:description:The rsh-server package contains a set of programs which allow users

to run commmands on remote machines, login to other machines and copy

files between machines (rsh, rlogin and rcp).  All three of these

commands use rhosts style authentication.  This package contains the

servers needed for all of these services.  It also contains a server

for rexec, an alternate method of executing remote commands.

All of these servers are run by xinetd and configured using

/etc/xinetd.d/ and PAM.  All the server is disabled by default.

samba-swat:description:

SWAT (the Samba Web Administration Tool) allows the samba smb.conf file

to be remotely managed using your favourite web browser. For the time

being this is being enabled on TCP port 901 via xinetd. Note that

SWAT does not use SSL encryption, nor does it preserve comments in

your smb.conf file. Webmin uses SSL encryption by default, and

preserves comments in configuration files, even if it does not display

them, and is therefore the preferred method for remotely managing

Samba.

tftp-server:description:The Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is normally used only for

booting diskless workstations.  The tftp-server package provides the

server for TFTP, which allows users to transfer files to and from a

remote machine. TFTP provides very little security, and should not be

enabled unless it is expressly needed.  The TFTP server is run from

/etc/xinetd.d/tftp, and is disabled by default on a Mandrake Linux

systems.

xinetd-ipv6:summary:Xinetd is a powerful replacement for inetd.

xinetd-ipv6:description:xinetd is a powerful replacement for inetd.

xinetd has access control machanisms, extensive logging capabilities,

the ability to make services available based on time, and can place

limits on the number of servers that can be started, among other things.

 

xinetd has the ability to redirect TCP streams to a remote host and

port. This is useful for those of that use ip masquerading, or NAT,

and want to be able to reach your internal hosts.

 

xinetd also has the ability to bind specific services to specific

interfaces. This is useful when you want to make services available

for your internal network, but not the rest of the world.  Or to have

a different service running on the same port, but different interfaces.

 

This version is compiled for IPV6.

xinetd:summary:Xinetd is a powerful replacement for inetd.

xinetd:description:xinetd is a powerful replacement for inetd.

xinetd has access control machanisms, extensive logging capabilities,

the ability to make services available based on time, and can place

limits on the number of servers that can be started, among other things.

 

xinetd has the ability to redirect TCP streams to a remote host and

port. This is useful for those of that use ip masquerading, or NAT,

and want to be able to reach your internal hosts.

 

xinetd also has the ability to bind specific services to specific

interfaces. This is useful when you want to make services available

for your internal network, but not the rest of the world.  Or to have

a different service running on the same port, but different interfaces.

samba-server:description:

Samba-server provides a SMB server which can be used to provide

network services to SMB (sometimes called "Lan Manager")

clients. Samba uses NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NetBT) protocols

and does NOT need NetBEUI (Microsoft Raw NetBIOS frame)

protocol.

 

Samba-2.2 features working NT Domain Control capability and

includes the SWAT (Samba Web Administration Tool) that

allows samba's smb.conf file to be remotely managed using your

favourite web browser. For the time being this is being

enabled on TCP port 901 via xinetd. SWAT is now included in

it's own subpackage, samba-swat.

 

Users are advised to use Samba-2.2 as a Windows NT4

Domain Controller only on networks that do NOT have a Windows

NT Domain Controller. This release does NOT as yet have

Backup Domain control ability.

 

Please refer to the WHATSNEW.txt document for fixup information.

This binary release includes encrypted password support.

 

Please read the smb.conf file and ENCRYPTION.txt in the

docs directory for implementation details.

tftp-server:description:The Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is normally used only for

booting diskless workstations.  The tftp-server package provides the

server for TFTP, which allows users to transfer files to and from a

remote machine. TFTP provides very little security, and should not be

enabled unless it is expressly needed.  The TFTP server is run from

/etc/xinetd.d/tftp, and is disabled by default on a Mandrake Linux

systems.

proftpd:description:ProFTPd is an enhanced FTP server with a focus toward simplicity, security,

and ease of configuration.  It features a very Apache-like configuration

syntax, and a highly customizable server infrastructure, including support for

multiple 'virtual' FTP servers, anonymous FTP, and permission-based directory

visibility.

 

This version supports both standalone and xinetd operation.

rsh-server:description:The rsh-server package contains a set of programs which allow users

to run commmands on remote machines, login to other machines and copy

files between machines (rsh, rlogin and rcp).  All three of these

commands use rhosts style authentication.  This package contains the

servers needed for all of these services.  It also contains a server

for rexec, an alternate method of executing remote commands.

All of these servers are run by xinetd and configured using

/etc/xinetd.d/ and PAM.  All the server is disabled by default.

samba-swat:description:

SWAT (the Samba Web Administration Tool) allows the samba smb.conf file

to be remotely managed using your favourite web browser. For the time

being this is being enabled on TCP port 901 via xinetd. Note that

SWAT does not use SSL encryption, nor does it preserve comments in

your smb.conf file. Webmin uses SSL encryption by default, and

preserves comments in configuration files, even if it does not display

them, and is therefore the preferred method for remotely managing

Samba.

xinetd-ipv6:summary:Xinetd is a powerful replacement for inetd.

xinetd-ipv6:description:xinetd is a powerful replacement for inetd.

xinetd has access control machanisms, extensive logging capabilities,

the ability to make services available based on time, and can place

limits on the number of servers that can be started, among other things.

 

xinetd has the ability to redirect TCP streams to a remote host and

port. This is useful for those of that use ip masquerading, or NAT,

and want to be able to reach your internal hosts.

 

xinetd also has the ability to bind specific services to specific

interfaces. This is useful when you want to make services available

for your internal network, but not the rest of the world.  Or to have

a different service running on the same port, but different interfaces.

 

This version is compiled for IPV6.

[root@localhost root]#

has nothing to do with JUST mounting win partitions.

[Guest klinger2004]

Thanks for the tips - I also discovered some of the manuals on cd 7 - imagine that!!! :roll:

 

It appears that I am running less than 200mb anyway - the rest is cached - I suppose there is no harm in that...Anyhoo - I just ordered another 512mb of PC2700 , so I should be sitting pretty ok in a few days!!

[bvc]

Is there a way to see what resources the services are using?

ps --help

man ps

 

ps auxf

ps auxO-s

 

ps aux | grep "<service>" ...for example X

ps aux | grep "X"

 

or syslogd

ps aux | grep "syslogd"

 

or anacron

ps aux | grep "anacron"