>[root]@boom:/proc/sys/vm #cat freepages
>128 192 256
>> I expect that you'll have "128 192 256" which will make it very
>> unlikely for you to experience the types of problems that I've been having
>> (and I presume that Christoph is getting the same problems as me). If were
>> having the same problems as me then this indicates some significant problem
>> with kernel memory management IMHO.
>Ok, forgive my ignorance here, what are those values representing? :-)
These control the amount of free kernel memory that is available. If
the kernel runs out of free memory while performing certain operations it
will crash or behave very badly (it does things such as not responding to
pings etc). If the kernel has a lot of free memory then memory is being
wasted and your system will not perform optimally. Having the right amount
of free kernel memory is crucial to correct and efficient kernel operation.
These 3 values determine the amount of memory that is kept free and how
agressively it is freed when it runs low. I don't know the details of how
they work.
I have just increased them to 128,192,256 on my 2 most active servers
(they have 16 and 32 megs of ram giving defaults of "32,48,64" and
"64,96,128" respectively) as the previous values of "64,96,128" caused
crashes every few hours in 2.1.39. I haven't tried 2.1.40 yet...
Russell Coker