If I run top and hit M to get a listing sorted by memory usage, I see
that 98% of memory is used up, as follows:
20% buffers
20% cached
23% non 0.0% processes
1% free
Where is the missing 36%?
"Ah!" I think to myself "I have 52 processes other processes using
'0.0%' memory. What if I guess they're each really using 0.049999%
memory...".
Rats, that only explains another 2.6%.
Any ideas? I'm stumped.
$ top --version
top (procps version 2.0.7)
This is on an old RH 7.2 system using kernel 2.4.28.
"top" interesting bits:
11:13pm up 74 days, 56 min, 1 user, load average: 0.10, 0.04, 0.01
84 processes: 77 sleeping, 2 running, 2 zombie, 3 stopped
CPU states: 0.0% user, 0.3% system, 0.0% nice, 99.6% idle
Mem: 255716K av, 251356K used, 4360K free, 0K shrd, 53528K buff
Swap: 265032K av, 237716K used, 27316K free 52428K cached
PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM TIME COMMAND
1273 root 18 0 255M 10M 732 R 0.0 4.3 1012m X
2451 luke 18 0 13932 8864 2388 S 0.0 3.4 7:21 postilion.exec
1061 xfs 9 0 16780 7492 336 S 0.0 2.9 0:49 xfs
17278 stella 9 0 6440 6440 4092 S 0.0 2.5 0:00 postilion.exec
15573 stella 9 0 6432 6432 4088 S 0.0 2.5 0:17 postilion.exec
15571 root 9 0 2236 2184 1480 S 0.0 0.8 0:07 sshd
5937 luke 9 0 12192 2096 1160 S 0.0 0.8 0:00 postilion.exec
745 ntp 9 0 1924 1924 1732 S 0.0 0.7 0:00 ntpd
16392 root 9 0 1644 1644 1256 S 0.0 0.6 0:00 fetchmail
17160 stella 9 0 1416 1412 400 S 0.0 0.5 0:00 ispell
1290 luke 9 0 1868 1344 684 S 0.0 0.5 2:06 wmaker
18057 luke 9 0 2948 1164 428 S 0.0 0.4 105:16 smbd
17321 luke 18 0 968 968 756 R 0.1 0.3 0:00 top
1309 luke 9 0 1108 944 644 S 0.0 0.3 0:02 bash
5918 luke 9 0 1356 808 368 S 0.0 0.3 0:00 ispell
1307 luke 9 0 936 724 428 S 0.0 0.2 0:01 bash
1295 luke 9 0 1948 648 296 S 0.0 0.2 0:07 wterm
1296 luke 9 0 1956 640 352 S 0.0 0.2 0:09 wterm
625 rpcuser 9 0 664 568 564 S 0.0 0.2 0:00 rpc.statd
1084 root 9 0 880 564 428 S 0.0 0.2 0:04 nmbd
572 root 9 0 608 552 512 S 0.0 0.2 0:03 syslogd
15901 root 9 0 508 508 436 S 0.0 0.1 0:00 portsentry
577 root 9 0 1352 496 452 S 0.0 0.1 0:00 klogd
15897 root 9 0 492 492 420 S 0.0 0.1 0:01 portsentry
597 rpc 9 0 572 488 484 S 0.0 0.1 0:00 portmap
800 root 9 0 452 440 252 S 0.0 0.1 0:13 smartd
1297 luke 9 0 584 428 328 S 0.0 0.1 0:00 xcb
947 root 8 0 848 424 308 S 0.0 0.1 0:06 sendmail
10423 luke 9 0 668 420 300 S 0.0 0.1 0:00 wterm
818 root 9 0 528 400 336 S 0.0 0.1 0:04 sshd
1299 luke 9 0 468 364 260 S 0.0 0.1 45:07 wmmail
1079 root 9 0 688 296 208 S 0.0 0.1 0:00 smbd
874 lp 8 0 360 252 208 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 lpd
10424 luke 8 0 592 240 236 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 bash
1298 luke 9 0 296 228 176 S 0.0 0.0 0:10 wmclock
852 root 9 0 328 140 136 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 xinetd
10616 luke 9 0 220 132 92 S 0.0 0.0 0:03 asmixer
985 root 9 0 172 116 76 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 crond
903 root 9 0 200 112 108 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 rpc.rquotad
533 root 9 0 168 108 104 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 mingetty
1142 root 8 0 136 80 60 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 rhnsd
1 root 8 0 120 72 52 S 0.0 0.0 0:06 init
1121 daemon 9 0 104 44 32 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 atd
1087 root 9 0 456 36 32 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 nmbd
1764 root 9 0 156 28 24 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 rpc.mountd
1201 root 9 0 268 20 16 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 login
1203 root 9 0 76 16 12 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 mingetty
1204 root 9 0 76 16 12 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 mingetty
1205 root 9 0 76 16 12 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 mingetty
[... the remaining 35 0.0%-memory using process omitted]
I also notice that if I start 5 galeon browser windows, I get 6 galeon
processes each using 34.4% memory (another 200% memory used).
The man page for top says "%MEM The task's share of the physical memory".
None of these numbers add up, for me! Even if I assume the man page is
wrong, and it should say "%MEM The task's share of the physical memory,
except when the process that's listed is sharing memory with others."
Puzzled,
luke
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
