[SunRescue] Memory questions

[David Rouse]

> > I hope these aren't dumb questions, but what's is the best 
> > way to get maximum
> > memory on a 64MB SS1+ or SS2?
> > My SS2 I use as my webserver has 64MB, but I'm wondering if 
> > there's processes I don't
> > need (powerd for one), where I can gain some extra memory?  
> > Right now I have about
> > 30MB free, but I might run X on it since I just aquirred a 
> > 16" monitor.
> 
> man top.  Find out which programs are eating up ram, and remove the 
ones
> that you don't need.  If you don't recognize something, look for
> documentation on it on that machine, and then online.  If you can't 
figure
> out what it is, kill it.  If something stops working, you'll know what 
that
> was.  What's the worst that can happen, a reboot, or maybe a 
re-install.
> Small price to pay to find out what killing that process does, if you 
ask
> me.
> 	Greg

He might not have top, but '/usr/ucb/ps -aux' will also show cpu and 
memory usage in a sense. Solaris's memory handling means you can't 
always just look at a number and tell if you have the right amount. Sun 
has a white paper somewhere on sizing memory and the process is a little 
involved. What I heard somewhere is to look at vmstat and make sure that 
the 'free' column doesn't stay under 4,000 over any length of time. The 
converse of this -- I suppose -- is if it doesn't get to about 4,000 
then you have enough RAM. Also watch the 'sr' column to see how hard the 
memory management is working to move memory pages around.

But getting rid of daemon process you don't need is a good idea, even if 
most of them will page out when you are working. I've been walking 
through the rcx.d directories myself, reading the scripts and seeing 
what I can drop.

--  
David Rouse
Network Manager
Goldsboro News-Argus