Topic: swap file filled up

[Lloyd Keen]

I had a prob this morning whereby I couldn't logon to the server and after some investigation I found that the physical memory (256MB) was 100% utilised and the swap file was running about 91%. Has anyone come across this before? The only way I could solve this problem was to reboot the server. Is there an easier way to clear the swap file? The server had been up for about 34 days without any problems and the only thing I've done lately was applied update4 about 5 days earlier (without rebooting). Anyone have any ideas what could have caused this to happen. BTW, it was 0730am when this happened and no users where actually logged on but there were complaints of poor performance the day prior to this happening. Any help would be appreciated.

[Charlie Brady]

Lloyd Keen wrote:

> Is there an easier way to clear the swap file?

Kill some large processes.

> Anyone have any ideas what could have caused this to happen.

Either an increase in the number of processes or an increase in the average size of all processes. Most likely one or more processes had grown large. A perusal of the process table (using the ps command) would  tell you what processes you had and what memory they were using.

Charlie

[Nathan Fowler]

Charlie is exactly correct, it is strongly recommended that you find the cause before you start creating work arounds, and his suggestions are pretty much the first place you want to start, but in case you are trying to isolate the problem and do not want to reboot to reinit your swap file simply type "swapoff" and then "swapon".