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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.bugs Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!overload.lbl.gov!lll-winken.llnl.gov!decwrl!raven.alaska.edu!acad3.alaska.edu!fxmlk From: fxmlk@acad3.alaska.edu (KIENENBERGER MIKE L) Subject: Possible Swapping bug (or design flaw?) Message-ID: <5JUL199421385862@acad3.alaska.edu> News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41.UAF Sender: news@raven.alaska.edu (USENET News System) Organization: University of Alaska - Fairbanks Date: Wed, 6 Jul 1994 05:38:00 GMT Lines: 28 I'm using the following system. % uname -a NetBSD starwars 0.9a MUFFIN#9 i386 I'm attempting to run a program called a MUSH which can be considered a multiuser database program where the program forks a process each hour to save the information about the database in the background. This is desirable since the database size is 15 Meg. The main process performs a fork() and then allows the child process to save the information and _exit(0);. The problem is that while a "ps aux" shows that the child process has exited and isn't using any memory, "/usr/sbin/swapinfo -k" shows that the virtual memory in use was never freed. Additional forks() will use additional virtual memory until the system finally freezes up when we run out of virtual memory. Terminating the original process (the parent of each child) finally releases the swap space allocated and the operating system returns to normal. Since this problem hasn't occurred under Mach, linux, or SunOS, I assume it's a problem with NetBSD. If nothing else, it's a non-standard implementation design. What I'd like is a fix or a workaround since restarting the parent process ever ten hours (by using 150 Megs swap space) isn't a desirable option. ============================================================================= -Mike Kienenberger FXMLK@ALASKA (BITNet) Academic Computing FXMLK@acad3.alaska.edu (Internet) University of Alaska-Fairbanks "I'm a computer programmer....<link><link><kludge><kludge> say-no-more!"