linux-kernel - Inactive memory keep growing and how to release it?

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <CAAO_Xo7sEH5W_9xoOjax8ynyjLCx7GBpse+EU0mF=9mEBFhrgw@mail.gmail.com>
Date:	Mon, 4 Mar 2013 17:52:22 +0800
From:	Lenky Gao <lenky.gao@...il.com>
To:	Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"devel@...uxdriverproject.org" <devel@...uxdriverproject.org>,
	"olaf@...fle.de" <olaf@...fle.de>,
	"apw@...onical.com" <apw@...onical.com>,
	"andi@...stfloor.org" <andi@...stfloor.org>,
	"akpm@...ux-foundation.org" <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	"linux-mm@...ck.org" <linux-mm@...ck.org>
Subject: Inactive memory keep growing and how to release it?

Hi,

When i just run a test on Centos 6.2 as follows:

#!/bin/bash

while true
do

	file="/tmp/filetest"

	echo $file

	dd if=/dev/zero of=${file} bs=512 count=204800 &> /dev/null

	sleep 5
done

the inactive memory keep growing:

#cat /proc/meminfo | grep Inactive\(fi
Inactive(file):   420144 kB
...
#cat /proc/meminfo | grep Inactive\(fi
Inactive(file):   911912 kB
...
#cat /proc/meminfo | grep Inactive\(fi
Inactive(file):  1547484 kB
...

and i cannot reclaim it:

# cat /proc/meminfo | grep Inactive\(fi
Inactive(file):  1557684 kB
# echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
# cat /proc/meminfo | grep Inactive\(fi
Inactive(file):  1520832 kB

I have tested on other version kernel, such as 2.6.30 and .6.11, the
problom also exists.

When in the final situation, i cannot kmalloc a larger contiguous
memory, especially in interrupt context.
Can you give some tips to avoid this?

PS:
# uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.32-220.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Dec 6
19:48:22 GMT 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux



--
Regards,

Lenky
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/