Re: The /sbin/update Daemon

Dan Merillat (dan@merillat.org)
Tue, 05 Aug 1997 22:33:21 -0400

Gabriel Paubert writes:
>
>
> On Mon, 4 Aug 1997, Jon Lewis wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 3 Aug 1997, Richard B. Johnson wrote:
> >
> > > Generally, your swap file size should be one of the following:
> > >
> > > (1) At least 64 megabytes.
> > > (2) Three times your RAM size.
> > > ... which ever is greater.
> >
> > Doesn't this depend quite a bit on what you do with the system? I have
> > numerous boxes that have never come anywhere close to using 3x their RAM
> > size in swap...and they run relatively well. On a shell server with 128mb
> > RAM, do you really want to be one of the users when it gets 300+mb into
> > swap?
>
> Indeed heavy swapping on a server is often a very bad idea. On a desktop,
> it's just the opposite, and you should be _very_ generous with swap space.
> There are some applications like netscape, who use swap space as a
> black hole chucking all radioactive waste generated by memory leaks :-)

Also good on servers, for the same reason. Thanks, I'll store memory
leaks on .10/meg disks rather then $4/meg SIMMs. Theres a lot of init
code and special cases in programs that fits very nicly in swap. ;-)

As a note, however, watch out for _swapping_ on servers... dumping unused
memory out to disk is different then thrashing. If you find yourself
using swap activly (and your disk lites 'll tell ya that ;-) it's time
for a ram upgrade.
So the above rule is still a good idea, MAX(64 meg, 3*RAM)

--Dan