Hello all, this is a question about freeing up system memory and swap
space as apparently this is not happening from some mathematical
programs I am using
Running 6 algebraic programs for several days, the %free -m command shows:
total used free shared buff/cache
available
Mem: 32024 21768 1470 6100 8784 3724
Swap: 32794 11373 21420
------------ after some time, another look:
total used free shared buff/cache
available
Mem: 32024 21758 238 7095 10026 2733
Swap: 32794 11415 21378
----------- and again
total used free shared buff/cache
available
Mem: 32024 21768 241 7377 10014 2442
Swap: 32794 11651 21142
------------ so clearly we are slowly filling up swap
killed all 6 algebraic programs using the %kill -9 pid command
afterwards the %free -m command shows
total used free shared buff/cache
available
Mem: 32024 17468 4472 7420 10083 6701
Swap: 32794 2579 30215
2.579 gigs hung up in swap space and used memory is 17.648 gigs, despite
empty system running around 900 meg
Killing these 6 programs did NOT free up system memory as hoped, nor
flush swap space.
-------------- waited awhile, check free space again
total used free shared buff/cache
available
Mem: 32024 17416 4486 7444 10121 6729
Swap: 32794 2565 30228
memory still not recovered, swap memory still used
--------------
finally rebooted system fresh
total used free shared buff/cache
available
Mem: 32024 903 29525 18 1595 30718
Swap: 32794 0 32794
Only 903 megs of memory being used now, upon startup, this looks good.
There appears to be a problem occurring here, as used memory never
recovered and swap space never emptied either, despite the 6 programs
being killed.
Is kill -9 the right command? or kill -15 ?? Once I kill the algebraic
program, shouldn't we see system memory recovered? I am also surprised
that swap did not drop to 0 used, once all 6 programs were terminated.
Randall
