> We are working with SuSe 7.0 on a LPAR.
> It has 6 dasds of 2GB each. 128MB memory.
> Apart from the essential processes, we are running Apache, DB2Connect and
> RMF/PM.
> I use windowmaker on with 2 xterms and xosview.
> The memory usage is pegged around 105MB most of the time.
It sounds like your workload isn't bad enough to actually
use the paging space you've allocated; As long as the
"computational pages" (an AIX-ism) doesn't impose any kind
of overcommitment ratio then the only processes that'll page
out will be done to maintain a specified minimum number of
buffers in memory.
> The catch is we have one full dasd of 2GB defined as swap in /etc/fstab.
> But we do not see it being used. I did read that the swap limit of 128MB
> has been changed/increased/removed since 2.2 and up.
Yup, and I'll bet that vmstat isn't showing all that much
in the way of paging activity.
> Following is the output from 'free' command:
> total used free shared buffers cached
> Mem: 127316 113920 13396 149120 22688 32180
> -/+ buffers/cache: 59052 68264
> Swap: 2097136 232 2096904
>
> I read the efficient way to use swap is to have several of those on
> different drives,
> instead of one big chunk.
Yes, but that's to reduce the HDA (Head-Disk-Actuator) motion.
With DASD as it's currently carved out (from an ESS/Shark or
some such?) it's less critical. If you were talking about
actual physical devices, that's another story.
> What else is missing in this scenario?
It sure looks like your workload is well matched to the size
of the system you've carved out. If you had allocated a 256MB
system you would probably find no use of paging space at all
and most of the memory will be buffers (I've got 256MB in my
PC- which seldom gets used unless I'm running X somehow, so
I usually have over 200MB of buffer space).
--
John R. Campbell Speaker to Machines [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- As a SysAdmin, yes, I CAN read your e-mail, but I DON'T get that bored!
Disclaimer: All opinions expressed above are those of John R. Campbell
alone and are seriously unlikely to reflect the opinions of
his employer(s) or lackeys thereof. Anyone who says
differently is itching for a fight!
