Why eats my Knoppix so much memory?

[Photonix]

Hi there,

I´m very new to Knoppix and Linux, but although being a Newbie I set up a Webserver including Apache,Mysql,SSH and Samba within 3 afternoons
(hoorray ).

Before I start to explain my problem I want you to know my system details:
Knoppix 3.4 HDD-Install
AMD K6 500Mhz
192MB Memory
8GB HDD (1GB Linux Swap)
Connected to Internet via DSL over Router
10Mbit LAN

As I wanted to start developing on the server I recognized it´s behaving extremely slow. phpSysInfo tells me Knoppix uses always over 85% of Physical Memory and seldom more than 2% of Disk Swap.

Because of the server is behaving that dull, most of the clients which want to connect over Internet get timeout errors, even in my LAN it takes up to 12 seconds for the webpages to be shown.

And I don't know where this comes from..

I already took KDE off the start-inits but it still behaves the same.

Pinging the server is working fine, it´s responding below 1ms.

Hope someone can help me here...


If you want to, you can have a look at http://photonix.ath.cx/ , phpSysinfo will be shown.

[user unknown]

Well - 192 MB isn't that much.

If your System isn't a Laptop, additional RAM will be quiete cheap.
Perhaps you may configure apache to use less memory, or samba, or mysql, or php.
sshd shouldn't use that much memory but you know: What you think is false - prove it!

So start 'top', hit 'M' ('m' might be usefull too) and look, who's eating ram.
Do you need a webserver and a samba-server?

[Photonix]

Mh I need samba for copying my on Windows developed files, don't want to use ftp for that.

I thought 192MB would be enough for Linux...

I will try 'top' and let you know what it says..

Could anyone open photonix.ath.cx? At my company, with a Novel Border Manager, I can´t...

[Photonix]

That's what top is telling me.
miniserv.pl can comes from Webmin IMHO.

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
______________________________________________________________________
 647 mysql      9    0  6056 6052 2584 S  0.0  3.2   0:00.12 mysqld
 649 mysql      8    0  6056 6052 2584 S  0.0  3.2   0:00.01 mysqld
 650 mysql      9    0  6056 6052 2584 S  0.0  3.2   0:00.00 mysqld
 653 mysql      9    0  6056 6052 2584 S  0.0  3.2   0:00.00 mysqld
 1831 root      10   0  4952 4944 4280 S  0.0  2.6   0:00.05 miniserv.pl
 1837 root      10   0  4952 4944 4280 S  0.0  2.6   0:00.04 miniserv.pl
 1839 root      10   0  4952 4944 4304 S  0.0  2.6   0:00.01 miniserv.pl
 699 root       8    0  4948 4940 4300 S  0.0  2.6   0:01.62 miniserv.pl
 563 root       9    0  4560 4556 4440 S  0.0  2.4   0:00.23 apache
 570 www-data   9    0  4560 4556 4452 S  0.0  2.4   0:00.00 apache
 571 www-data   9    0  4560 4556 4452 S  0.0  2.4   0:00.00 apache
 572 www-data   9    0  4560 4556 4452 S  0.0  2.4   0:00.01 apache
 573 www-data   9    0  4560 4556 4452 S  0.0  2.4   0:00.00 apache
 574 www-data   9    0  4560 4556 4452 S  0.0  2.4   0:00.00 apache
 665 root       9    0  2960 2960 1984 S  0.0  1.5   0:00.01 smbd
 1650 root      9    0  2452 2452 1244 S  0.0  1.3   0:00.44 bash
 577 root       8    0  1972 1968 1380 S  0.0  1.0   0:00.00 mount.smbfs
 1506 root      9    0  1944 1940 1684 S  0.0  1.0   0:00.06 sshd
 661 root       9    0  1872 1868 1404 S  0.0  1.0   0:00.03 nmbd
 582 root       9    0  1568 1568 1192 S  0.0  0.8   0:00.06 cupsd
 672 root       9    0  1448 1448 1316 S  0.0  0.8   0:00.47 sshd
 608 root       9    0  1232 1232 1024 S  0.0  0.6   0:00.06 mysqld_safe
 1662 root     17    0  1040 1040  840 R  0.7  0.5   0:00.53 top
 446 root       9    0   632  632  544 S  0.0  0.3   0:00.00 automount

That's the headline of 'top':

Tasks:  37 total,   1 running,  36 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):   0.3% user,   0.3% system,   0.0% nice,  99.3% idle
Mem:    191440k total,   138116k used,    53324k free,     7540k buffers
Swap:  1084376k total,        0k used,  1084376k free,   106912k cached

The server behaved also dull after I terminated every process except from apache..

[user unknown]

Yes, I could open the php-page, and found a load of 95% too.
I even thoght 2 seconds of trying a ssh-login
- hey - only 84% now -

There are 6 apaches, 4 miniservs and 4 mysqlds running, - for fast answering to multiple requests.
Well that isn't very much, but the question is, how many users use the services, how often, and probably at the same time.

You might reduce the number of apaches and mysqlds in the conf-files.
But obviously the php-Page is for a good part measuring itself.

I would repeate the top-session, and while running top, start the php-script, to see, how much memory and cpu it is using. With 's' '1' you may set the interval for top to 1 (sleep, seconds?).

160 MB used - reportet by php, and 140 MB, reported by top, makes a difference of 20 MB for the php-task!

But both scenarios leave some memory free - 30 or 50 MB. So swapping doesn't seem to be involved.
The cpu-usage is very low - so no buggy program...
Is only the first request that slow, or does a second, invoked shortly later, need the same time? I'm thinking of some apm/ acpi saving power and sending harddrive to sleep...

[user unknown]

Either there is some caching, or some sleeping involved.
I tried a request - about 12 s.
A repeated request: ca. 4 s.

This might indicate something

[Photonix]

Hi,

thanks for your answers...as I read your mention of acpi I thought "that's the clue".
I remebered the server´s screen is getting black after a time of idleness. But as I woke him up nothing was going faster than before.
Also, apmd isn't activated. But maybe there is another daemon which handles the hdd that I don't know...(being a newbie)...

And only a maximum of 2 people are using the server, so there is no heavy load.

What entry do I have to change in the mysql/apache conf-files to make them use less processes?

And while you´re living in the same country like I do, you know logging into someone other's SSH is forbidden by law
Und was sich reimt ist gut

[user unknown]

I'm not running apache, nor mySql.
I don't need a webserver.
And use postgresql as database-server.

but apache2 is installed, and in
/usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf
there is a section, starting like this
##
## Server-Pool Size Regulation (MPM specific)
##
with settings for this and that.

for mySql search on your own.

[Photonix]

Ok, after I regulated the pool-size it's only 65% memory in usage...
hm but still not satisfying I think..

[user unknown]

My measurement:

Mem:    256336k total,    47744k used,   208592k free,     6856k buffers
Swap:   530104k total,        0k used,   530104k free,    24456k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM   TIME COMMAND
  193 stefan    15   0  5968 2440 4968 S  0.0  1.0   0:00 bash
  194 postgres  15   0  5776 2432 4748 S  0.0  0.9   0:00 bash
  190 root      16   0  5736 2416 4748 S  0.0  0.9   0:00 bash
  319 postgres  16   0 16612 1940  15m S  0.0  0.8   0:00 postmaster
  325 postgres  19   0  7692 1744 6948 S  0.0  0.7   0:00 postmaster
  324 postgres  19   0  8684 1732 6948 S  0.0  0.7   0:00 postmaster
  404 root      16   0  6740 1708 5028 S  0.0  0.7   0:00 cupsd
  336 root      15   0  2928 1340 2164 S  0.0  0.5   0:00 xitami
  185 root      16   0  2384 1292 1360 S  0.0  0.5   0:00 klogd
  165 root      16   0  2400 1056 2024 S  0.0  0.4   0:00 pppd
  485 stefan    16   0  2064  960 1856 R  0.0  0.4   0:00 top
  180 root      15   0  2164  808 1608 S  0.0  0.3   0:00 pppstatus
  135 root      17   0  1732  676 1504 S  0.0  0.3   0:00 pump
  183 root      16   0  1700  632 1408 S  0.0  0.2   0:00 syslogd
  363 root      16   0  1528  504 1368 S  0.0  0.2   0:00 pppoe
  191 root      16   0  1640  472 1352 S  0.0  0.2   0:00 getty
  192 root      16   0  1640  472 1352 S  0.0  0.2   0:00 getty
  195 root      16   0  1640  472 1352 S  0.0  0.2   0:00 getty
    1 root      16   0    80   80   56 S  0.0  0.0   0:04 init
    2 root      34  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00 ksoftirqd/0
    3 root       5 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00 events/0

SQL-Server: Postgres
HTTP-Servr: xitami
PHP: - none-

note:
- I didn't run any request for xitami and postgres.
- when I start X, and stop it, not all memory is shown as 'available'.

PS: Your server is now reponding in about 3 sec., even for the first request.