Bug 9592

Summary: swapping in 2.6.24-rc5-git3
Product: Memory Management Reporter: Rafael J. Wysocki (rjwysocki)
Component: OtherAssignee: Andrew Morton (akpm)
Status: REJECTED INSUFFICIENT_DATA    
Severity: normal CC: alan, protasnb, xhejtman
Priority: P1    
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Kernel Version: 2.6.24-rc5-git3 Subsystem:
Regression: Yes Bisected commit-id:
Bug Depends on:    
Bug Blocks: 9243    

Description Rafael J. Wysocki 2007-12-17 14:04:36 UTC 
Subject         : swapping in 2.6.24-rc5-git3
Submitter       : Lukas Hejtmanek <xhejtman@ics.muni.cz>
References      : http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/12/17/98
Handled-By      : Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Comment 1 Natalie Protasevich 2008-02-01 21:38:15 UTC 
Citing Lukas:

does /proc/sys/vm/swappiness still work as expected? 
# /proc/sys/vm# cat swappiness 
0
but scp-ing 2GB file causes many processes are swapped out due to increase of
the file cache size.
I think it is a regression in recent rc versions as I use 2.6.24-xx kernels on
my new laptop from the very beginnig I have the laptopt and I did not notice
such behaviour before.

I have 1 GB RAM and I was coping a 2GB file from the network to the laptop.
After the operation, 600MB of the swap area has been consumed. At the
beginning of the copy, the swap area was empty.
I have mapped ratio about 78 while scp-ing the file. Distress suddenly raises
from 0 to 100. At this point, all the processes are swapped out.

I guess it happens if scp is faster than the local disk which happens if
I scp-ing over GE from desktop (with fast disk - and reading) to laptop (slow
disk - and writing).
Comment 2 Lukas Hejtmanek 2008-02-02 02:00:37 UTC 
Yes. But it happens mostly if much memory is eaten by firefox and X server. It disappeared after I had upgraded to 2GB RAM.
Comment 3 Alan 2009-03-23 09:14:52 UTC 
There are too many further changes for this report to remain useful. Closing. If you have a similar problem with a current kernel please reopen or open a new bug thanks