[SLE] ps command output regarding swapped processes

From: Andre Truter (andre.truter_at_intekom.co.za)
Date: 07/29/03

  • Next message: Erik Jakobsen: "[SLE] Worldclock"
    To: suse-linux-e@suse.com
    Date: 29 Jul 2003 11:17:46 +0200
    
    

    I have recently noticed that according to the ps command's output, all
    the Postgres processes are swapped to disk.

    E.g.:
    ps -ef | grep postgres
    postgres 1661 1 0 Jul18 ? 00:00:00 [postmaster]
    postgres 1665 1661 0 Jul18 ? 00:00:00 [postmaster]
    postgres 1666 1665 0 Jul18 ? 00:00:00 [postmaster]
    postgres 5984 1661 0 Jul27 ? 00:00:02 [postmaster]
    postgres 6057 1661 0 08:40 ? 00:00:00 [postmaster]
    postgres 6673 1661 0 09:30 ? 00:00:00 [postmaster]

    When I run top, the following is shown about 3 of the processes:

    PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ SWAP Command
    1661 postgres 15 0 492 192 140 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.29 300 postmaster
    1665 postgres 15 0 424 64 52 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.05 360 postmaster
    1666 postgres 15 0 544 220 216 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.08 324 postmaster
     
    Maybe I don't interpret this correctly or I don't understand it, but it
    shows that only part of those 3 processes's memory is swapped to disk.

    The other funny thing is that the ps command normally showed the command
    line info of the postmaster processes. I use it to see which users are
    using the DB.

    I only noticed last week that the ps command does not show any command
    line info about the postmaster processes.

    After some investigation, I saw that ps shows that about half of the
    processes (including vmware which is very active) is swapped out. This
    does not make sense.

    I also did a little test and ran a script that would run ps with a grep
    for postgres every second.
    Then I started runiing some bis queries on one of the databases.
    After a few minutes of hammering the database, ps did not once show a
    postmaster process to NOT be swapped out.

    Is this possible?
    This would mean that a postmaster process is swapped to RAM and back to
    disk within a second. Well, it will have to be swapped around several
    times, as I ran a few queries per second.

    Anybody seen something similar?

    Installed software:
    SuSE 8.2 Pro
    ps-2003.3.5-10
    k_deflt-2.4.20-96
    postgresql-7.3.2-24
    postgresql-server-7.3.2-24
    postgresql-libs-7.3.2-24

    -- 
    Andre Truter    Software Engineer   Registered Linux user #185282
    ICQ #40935899   AIM: trusoftzaf     http://www.trusoft.za.net
    ~ If you are in control, you are going too slow    - Mario Andretti ~
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  • Next message: Erik Jakobsen: "[SLE] Worldclock"

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