i've been trying to determine where the problem's coming from, not wanting to look at the kernel 'cause well... i don't know how to fix that. but i can't avoid it. my router is a k6-II running gentoo-sources, iptables, sshd and that's it. and here's the output of free:
# free total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 25992 25492 500 0 176 3396 -/+ buffers/cache: 21920 4072 Swap: 136544 1684 134860
now i understand that linux likes to use all of my ram, but caches most of it, so the "free" column should be rather low, but 500bytes? and where's all the rest of my ram gone? the box doesn't do anything other than route packets!
The key to your answer is the buffers/cache line :)
Linux runs a system where (current me if i'm wrong) things like recently access files are stored in the memory to help concurrent access. However, this memory isn't 'used' in the normal sense - if needed it will overwrite it all for use by a running program that needs it.
Taking your router, of the 25492kb used, 3572kb are buffers/cache, leaving you with 21920kb used and (when needed) 4072kb.
free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 256580 252904 3676 0 25148 55208
-/+ buffers/cache: 172548 84032
Swap: 530136 3720 526416
Same for your web/file server - only 172548kb are used (84032kb are avaliable when needed).
My file/webserver, running ssh, rsync, postgresql, mysql, uw-imap, postfix/procmail, spamd, samba, fcron, bind and dhcpd has:
# file
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 125896 123300 2596 0 10880 43916
-/+ buffers/cache: 68504 57392
Swap: 250480 110864 139616So, it's only using 68504kb of mem (although 110864 are in swap, 'cause it's been up for so long) - i've got 57392kb avaliable if i need it :)
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jonathan wright mail at djnauk.co.uk
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