memory leak with CSWS

[Gregg Parmentier]

Alphaserver 1000 5/300 512MB memory
OpenVMS V7.3-1
Tcpware V5.7-2
CSWS V2.0

Everything is stable until I start CSWS, then I start losing memory. I've determined that, if I periodically kill any APACHE$SWSxxxx processes numbered 5 and above, the memory leak slows, but does not go away. The more active the web hits, the faster the memory disappears.

Anyone have an idea?

[Richard Whalen · Accepted solution]

Can you clarify what you mean by a memory leak? Are you talking about non-paged pool consumption? Or process dynamic memory consumption?

[Gregg Parmentier]

Hm, all I've been looking at is the physical memory usage. I'll disable my delaying tactics and get more specific information.

[Andy Bustamante]

You need to review physical memory, free page list, modified page list and "in use" memory figures along with XFC stats. Free memory will drop when you do anything.

Getting Started with OpenVMS: A Guide for New Users by Michael D. Duffy can provide an introduction on memory use by OpenVMS.

Andy

[Volker Halle]

Gregg,

OpenVMS is a virtual memory system and pyhsical memory is a shared resource, which OpenVMS tries to provide as needed to all components of the operating system requesting physical memory.

OpenVMS (including XFC) try it's best to automatically balance the available physical memory against the memory requests. There are certain system parameters and user quotas, which control these algorithms.

A 'memory leak' in this context, would show up as increasing workingset and/or virtual page or pagefile usage by individual processes, finally leading to EXQUOTA or INSVIRMEM errors for those processes.

Overall physical memory shortage on a system will result in heavy hard-paging and/or swapping.

Volker.

[Gregg Parmentier]

Not really a memory leak, but thanks for all the information. For someone who's been using VMS for twenty years, and doing admin for ten, I sure do have some funny gaps in my knowledge.