On Fri, 21 Sep 2001, Mike Holland wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Sep 2001, Keiran Sweet wrote:
>
> > I have recompiled the kernel to disable modules, statically include the
> > network card drivers, and all other hardware drivers, plus include all
> > needed netfilter support.
>
> Why bother with all that? Whats wrong with modules?
>
If modules are not needed because the configuration is fixed, then it is
better to remove the support for a simple reason: security measure. Nasty
stuffs can be done when module support is enabled on a machine: load a
nice rootkit module and that's it, you own the machine from it's real
root. Modules does save memory simply because you can choose to only
load what you need at a time, but not by it's nature: a driver loaded in a
module will use the same ressources as if it was statically included in
the kernel.
> > All of this managed to get the kernel size down from about 2 megs(plus
> > modules) to about 722k.
>
> I'm surprised - I thought modules were supposed to keep memory use down.
> Too many non-modules drivers in the kernel?
> Still, I dont think you need have bothered. 64MB is more than plenty for
> your purpose.
>
> > My question is why i am constantly noticing that
> > the systems memory is always
> > becoming highly used, upon boot it uses 17megs of the 64 availiable, and
> > i'll check back a day later to see it using about 62 megs of memory.
> > I have asked a few people about this, and they have advised me that its
> > due to HDD caching ect, ie, more writing/reading activity the more RAM
>
> You just answered your own question. Unused memory will fill with disk
> cache. What does the command "free -m" tell you?
>
> Also "ps aux" will tell you pre-process memory use (virtual & resident).
>
> > I have looked through a few books and havent been able to find much
>
> dead trees? STFW , e.g.
>
> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=linux+memory-management+faq
> http://www.mainmatter.com/linux-faq/sec6.html#AEN2058
>
>
> --
> Mike Holland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> --==--
> "Everybody is talking about the weather but nobody does anything
> about it." -- Mark Twain
>
>
>
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