New subject: [Bug 340143] System becomes sluggish/unusable after some time ( weird swapping behaviour)

8 Nov 2007

      https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=340143

           Summary: System becomes sluggish/unusable after some time/weird
                    swapping behaviour
           Product: openSUSE 10.3
           Version: Final
          Platform: x86
        OS/Version: Other
            Status: NEW
          Severity: Normal
          Priority: P5 - None
         Component: Kernel
        AssignedTo: kernel-maintainers@forge.provo.novell.com
        ReportedBy: lenz@grimmer.com
         QAContact: qa@suse.de
          Found By: ---

Hardware: IBM Thinkpad T42, 1GB RAM, Pentium M 1,8GHz CPU, Fujitsu MHT2080AH 80
GB Hard disk, running on openSUSE 10.3 (2.6.22.9-0.4-default)

I've observed this problem several times now since I updated to 10.3, but I
can't really put my finger to where the problem might be. I use this Laptop as
a regular Desktop system, running the usual applications (KDE, Firefox,
Thunderbird, OpenOffice). For backup purposes, I have a cron job that runs
rsnapshot every four hours to back up my home directory (reiserfs on an
encrypted LVM volume) to an externally attached USB disk drive.

I noticed that the entire system becomes very sluggish during heavy disk
activity. The mouse cursor starts jumping, application windows are being
refreshed very slowly, the whole system becomes very unresponsive und basically
unusable.

Interestingly, it becomes slower and slower with each rsync run, so even when
the backup has finished, the system still does not return back to the initial
interactive performance it had after a fresh reboot. I observe that the system
starts to swap quite a lot, even though there still is free memory available. 

After a few days, the system becomes so unusable that I have to reboot to
regain control. I've set /proc/sys/vm/swappiness to "30", but this did not
really make a difference.

This is the output of "vmstat 3" during an rsync run (after about 4-5 days of
uptime):

procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu----
 r  b   swpd   free   buff  cache   si   so    bi    bo   in   cs us sy id wa
 0 11 785504 548732  54876  73688   28   12    38    36   59   50 18  5 63 14
 0  9 785048 549872  53668  72792  467    0  2071    15  596 1365  5  7  0 89
 1 11 784572 551276  52296  72248  373    0  1679    45  543 1414  7  4  0 88
 0  9 784008 549728  52836  72048  589    0  3345     7  701 1487  7  8  0 85
 1  8 782988 540584  56128  75956  824    0  5875     0 1012 1987 12 15  0 72
 2  4 782628 523636  62188  85052  369    0 15181   941 2023 4219 23 31  0 45
 0  6 782428 538796  54908  79248  261    0  6689     8 1173 2072  9 16  0 75
 2  8 781968 545764  52408  73596  592    0  2748    71  672 1411  8  9  0 83
 1  6 781784 543092  54424  74196  277    0  4675   873  908 1765  9 14  0 77
 2  6 781296 543908  55032  72168  447    0  5071    48 1049 2017 12 16  0 71
 0  6 780924 548352  53464  71464  423    0  4457    36  908 1783 17 14  0 69
 0  4 780620 549724  52976  70604  352    0  4147   112  882 1651  9 12  0 79
 2  5 780388 546104  57320  69664  324    0  3540   844  724 1549  8 13  0 79
 2  5 780080 540712  60236  71684  387    0  6051    57 1093 1863 11 19  0 70
 0  5 779784 539128  60884  71420  360    0  3964     0  778 1591  8 12  0 80
 2  5 779392 535712  61612  72580  636    0  3399    43  703 1463  5  9  0 87
 1  6 779104 534812  60880  73200  501    0  3779     0  848 1572  9 11  0 80
 1  5 778652 540708  56184  71128  595    0  2125   892  541 1298  5  6  0 89
 2  5 778324 545304  53464  68716  401    0  2699     0  576 1313  5  6  0 89
 2  8 778012 546684  52440  67552  380    0  2917    71  663 1491 11  9  0 80
 0  8 777784 535292  57652  72824  325    0  6811     1 1173 2007  8 16  0 76
 0  8 777424 542336  52612  70232  516    0  2889    49  785 1866  7  7  0 87
 0  7 776932 541632  53764  68804  452    0  3036    21  799 2150  8  7  0 85
 1  6 776788 540740  53696  69844  245    0  2507     4  786 1753  7 10  0 84
 1  7 776540 543916  51764  68020  409    0  2213   121  691 1608  5  7  0 88
 0  5 776288 551036  46892  64996  365    0  2012     0  588 1589  7  7  0 86
 0  6 775780 552548  46504  62516  640    0  2277    48  720 1647  7  8  0 85
 0  7 775260 553852  45396  60356  656    0  1711     0  547 1395  7  4  0 89
 1  6 774912 551984  45708  60984  523    0  2285    96  688 1572  6  8  0 86
 3  6 774620 546252  47352  63864  409    0  4160     0  985 2066 11 16  0 73
 1  6 774124 530196  53908  73124  456    0  7681   136 1272 2137 10 18  0 72
 0  7 773668 527068  53872  75800  556    0  4692    11  858 1659  9 14  0 77
 2  6 773428 529096  51772  75656  328    0  2385    35  647 1652  6  8  0 87
 1  4 773148 525884  53336  76988  395    0  3960    57  783 1819 13 13  0 74
 2  7 772860 527528  53112  74576  401    0  2240    53  608 1532  4  7  0 89
 3  9 772568 522616  56204  75324  392    0  4712    65  857 1916 11 15  0 74

Once the rsync was finished, the system was still swapping like mad when I
tried to switch applications. Here is a "vmstat 3" output taken after the
backup run:

procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu----
 r  b   swpd   free   buff  cache   si   so    bi    bo   in   cs us sy id wa
 4  3 729000 481936  21016  61784  292  105   740   195  432 1025  5  3  0 92
 2  3 729096 481768  20696  61928  297  145   804   197  428  951  6  3  0 91
 3  4 729048 481012  21104  62240  209   25   996    69  426 1006  4  4  0 91
 3  6 728936 479832  20980  62780  321   63  1000    77  444  955  7  6  0 87
 1  3 728856 480628  20908  61972  319   84   712   145  438 1007 11  5  0 85
 3  3 728812 480640  20668  61584  372  119   733   161  442 1031  3  4  0 93
 0  5 728680 479268  20876  62376  371  108  1024   161  445 1030 14  5  0 82
 3  4 728508 477124  21000  63684  280    0  1524    64  457 1042  8  4  0 88
 0  3 728152 474124  21008  65788  417    0  1705     4  442  997  5  3  0 92
 2  7 727964 475124  21092  63484  400   23  1044    79  445 1025  3  3  0 93
 0  4 727744 472556  21360  64920  367   44  1640    69  473 1155  6  4  0 91
 3  4 727480 473796  21736  62884  309    5   560    28  408 1320  9  3  0 88
 2  7 727404 473440  21148  63528  320   65   940   152  433 1011  5  3  0 92
 2  5 727332 472104  21172  64208  361   47  1101   116  461 1056  8  3  0 89
 2  4 727228 472004  21340  63564  343   45   963    71  437 1072  4  3  0 92
 2  6 727252 473088  21096  63092  325  103   559   143  434 1020  5  3  0 92
 1  4 727200 471524  20980  64056  340   53  1176   104  451 1076 11  4  0 86
 5  2 726912 472016  20892  63116  461   84   725   153  470 1333  9  4  0 87
 0  3 728840 474384  20668  62732  197 1119   311  1177  445 1470  8  8  0 85
 0  5 729680 473280  20924  63912  197  499   760   499  517 1228  5  3  0 92
 0  3 731196 477300  21032  63492  371  880   461   881  482  932  2  2  0 96
 3  4 732128 478356  21500  63700  331  523   665   556  470 1116  3  3  0 93
 0  5 732824 478040  21844  63532  284  441   405   441  443 1063  6  5  0 89
 0  2 734064 481272  22240  62588  384  769   581   792  462  928  6  3  0 91
 0  9 735892 482944  22296  60940  457 1052   525  1052  493 1464  9  6  0 85
 2  6 737268 483988  22508  61740  463  759   791   767  492 1177  7  4  0 89
 1  8 737264 481908  22468  63832  573  265  1359   319  443 1018  6  3  0 91
 2  5 738108 480016  21800  67220  239  553  1900   553  535  883  4  3  0 93
 4  3 737792 488624  21124  61800  372    3  1492    49  481 1900 10  7  0 83
 1  4 737536 489316  21124  61880  451    0  1043     0  439 1007  2  2  0 95
 3  7 737336 487084  21796  62308  291    0  1409   105  436 1053  5  2  0 93
 0  5 737100 486984  21532  61864  360    0   855    45  424  986  6  3  0 91
 0  6 736696 486500  21664  61284  625    0  1116    51  445 1030  6  3  0 92
 2  8 736224 485268  21400  61516  629    0  1429   115  475 1103  3  3  0 93
 5  5 735504 485536  21056  60372  775    0  1091    48  451 1066  3  3  0 94
 0  5 735156 486128  21288  59652  360    0   653   111  433 1135  7  4  0 90

This behavior really makes the system quite unusable for desktop purposes. Why
is it swapping like mad, even though there is plenty of free memory?

Please let me know if you require any additional information. Thanks!

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[Bug 340143] New: System becomes sluggish/unusable after some time/ weird swapping behaviour

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