Re: kswapd etc hogging machine

[Art Hays <art@lsr.nei.nih.gov>]

An update:  This particular behavior I observed no longer occurs with
2.4.9-13smp, the latest update supplied by Redhat.  Thanks for all the
very helpful info I received.

> Problem:  kswapd, kreclaimd, kupdated push load average high during simple
> tar.  Response of system drops such that even keystroke echos are
> noticeably delayed.
> 
> Specifics:
> 
> Machine- 4 processor 700Mhz Dell with 4G Ram and 6G swap space running
> stock Redhat 7.2 distribution.  All disks are SCSI using ext2.
> 
> Command- from a remote machine this command is executed to the Linux 
> machine "tar cBf - . | rsh linux "(tar xBpf -)".
> 
> Manifestion of problem- As this command continues on a freshly booted 
> Linux machine the free memory reported by 'top' slowly goes to a low 
> number.  When it bottoms out, the processes 'kswapd', 'kreclaimd', and 
> 'kupdated' begin to run pushing the load average above 4 at times.  
> Responsiveness of machine drops dramatically with even keystroke echos 
> delayed for seconds.


-- 
Art Hays					avhays@nih.gov or art@lsr.nei.nih.gov
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Nat. Institutes of Health			(301) 402-0511 (fax)
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