Hi, This morning, I found that my laptop (running SuSE 6.3) that I left running overnight was frozen solid. After doing a cold reboot of the machine I checked the log file and found the following messages between the time I used the machine and the time I found it frozen: Jan 29 04:13:29 seahorse kernel: VM: killing process aide Jan 29 06:13:08 seahorse kernel: VM: terminating process X Jan 29 06:13:17 seahorse kernel: VM: killing process sendmail Jan 29 06:31:20 seahorse kernel: VM: killing process pppd Jan 29 06:31:21 seahorse kernel: VM: killing process gpm Jan 29 06:31:23 seahorse kernel: VM: killing process kfm Jan 29 06:42:45 seahorse kernel: VM: killing process kpanel Jan 29 06:46:22 seahorse kernel: VM: killing process setiathome Any idea what is going on? The only thing I can think of is that I ran out of memory, but I have 192MB real memory and a 128 MB swap partition. If there is a suspect, it is probably Netscape but I am not sure. Avi -- Avi Schwartz Get a Life avi@CFFtechnologies.com Get Linux -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/
* Avi Schwartz (avi@CFFtechnologies.com) [20000129 15:46]:
Jan 29 04:13:29 seahorse kernel: VM: killing process aide Jan 29 06:13:08 seahorse kernel: VM: terminating process X Jan 29 06:13:17 seahorse kernel: VM: killing process sendmail Jan 29 06:31:20 seahorse kernel: VM: killing process pppd Jan 29 06:31:21 seahorse kernel: VM: killing process gpm Jan 29 06:31:23 seahorse kernel: VM: killing process kfm Jan 29 06:42:45 seahorse kernel: VM: killing process kpanel Jan 29 06:46:22 seahorse kernel: VM: killing process setiathome
Any idea what is going on?
You guessed part of the answer: your machine is running out of memory. In
this case, the kernel starts killing processes, starting with those that hog
the most memory.
There are quite a few possible reasons, with the most probable being a
process (i.e. program) that leaks memory (i.e. allocating memory that it
never frees) or process that needs X resources which the X-Server only frees
when it is shut down. For instance the 3D Screensavers are known as memory
hogs.
The only way to find out who the culprit is would be examining the system
with 'free', top or other monitoring tools.
Philipp
--
Philipp Thomas
I am also having problems with the VM which I was NOT having before SuSE 6.3. The times when it seems to happen seem to be when the following processes are running : setiathome, netscape, kde processes I do not know which one of them is causing the problem but when I use "top" I do not see anything unusual in terms of either memory usage or cpu usage. But one thing which seems to be related to it is that it usually happens within 1 hour of logging off the internet. Have (m)any others seem this ? CP -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/
I managed to find the criminal last night! I have a cron process running aide, a program that scans all files on the disk, checks their signature and reports which files have changed. When I caught it yesterday, it was consuming 128MB and was far from done! Combine aide with Setiathome and Netscape and you can see why VM was killing my processes in the middle of the night. Avi C Hennessy wrote:
I am also having problems with the VM which I was NOT having before SuSE 6.3. The times when it seems to happen seem to be when the following processes are running : setiathome, netscape, kde processes I do not know which one of them is causing the problem but when I use "top" I do not see anything unusual in terms of either memory usage or cpu usage. But one thing which seems to be related to it is that it usually happens within 1 hour of logging off the internet.
Have (m)any others seem this ?
-- Avi Schwartz Get a Life avi@CFFtechnologies.com Get Linux -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/
participants (3)
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avi＠CFFtechnologies.com -
CP.Hennessy＠iname.com -
pthomas＠suse.de