linux-kernel - Re: kswapd continuously active

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Message-ID: <20100125130627.GO13771@kernel.dk>
Date:	Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:06:27 +0100
From:	Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@...cle.com>
To:	Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@...ozas.de>
Cc:	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: kswapd continuously active

On Sat, Jan 23 2010, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 
> with 2.6.32.2 on sparc64 I am seeing that there is a sync(1) process 
> busy in D state, with the following trace:
> 
> sync          D 000000000079299c  7552  4851      1 0x208061101000004
> Call Trace:
>  [000000000053ca58] bdi_sched_wait+0xc/0x1c
>  [000000000079299c] __wait_on_bit+0x58/0xb8
>  [0000000000792a5c] out_of_line_wait_on_bit+0x60/0x74
>  [000000000053ca3c] bdi_sync_writeback+0x6c/0x7c
>  [000000000053ca78] sync_inodes_sb+0x10/0xfc
>  [0000000000540dd0] __sync_filesystem+0x50/0x88
>  [0000000000540ec8] sync_filesystems+0xc0/0x124
>  [0000000000540f80] sys_sync+0x1c/0x48
>  [0000000000406294] linux_sparc_syscall+0x34/0x44
> 
> kswapd is also active all the time, writing something to disk - LED is 
> blinking, and that's been going on for over half an hour despite the box 
> being not busy. How do I see what kswapd is still flushing to disk? Even 
> if all RAM (8 GB) was filled with dirty data, syncing it out would not 
> take that long - that is to say, the sync process should have long 
> exited.

That doesn't sound good. What does /proc/meminfo say? What file systems
are you using?

-- 
Jens Axboe

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