On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 10:44:59 -0600, Wes wrote: > On 12/9/04 9:23 AM, "Peter Haworth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > It runs RHEL ES v3, kernel 2.4.21-20.ELsmp > > It's generally a very stable box which runs a number of postgresql > > instances. But last night we hit very high low averages - 10+, vs the > > normal 0-2. > > The culprit appeared to be kswapd, which was using huge amounts of cpu. > > I'd like to know why! > > There were some major changes in swap management somewhere in the linux 2.4 > kernel (also RH 3.0 ES). I don't off hand remember exactly which level. > Under a heavy I/O load, we also saw kswapd going nuts with the 2.4.21 > kernel, destroying system performance. The only solution we found was to > upgrade to a 2.6 kernel.
We've now upgraded to RedHat's 2.4.21-25.ELsmp, which seems to have fixed things. -- Peter Haworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Back then, I remember wondering how come he accepted my offer instead of doing something sensible like, say, running away screaming." -- Yanick Champoux, on being a Perl Golf referee ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings