I have a VPS running CentOS 5.7 (Final), 32-bit.
Right after boot, when I run # cat /proc/user_beancounters I see that my dcachesize usage is at about 4100000, while my VPS is set up with a limit of 4600000. So I am already using up about 90% of this cache somehow. Lately I've been having memory issues, which I've figured out I've been able to hotfix by service mysqld restart, since the usage of that builds up over time. But each restart takes it back down to about 410k, and then the cycle repeats.
I don't have much else running at the time -- just basic things like sshd or lighttpd. I suppose I could try stopping other services to see if the dcachesize value drops and write down each one. But it's surprising that it would just boot up with so much used. Is a value of 4 million for an idle state unusual?
Here's an output from ps -ef
UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD
root 1 0 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 init [3]
root 11754 19881 0 11:50 ? 00:00:00 sshd: root@ttyp0
root 11784 11754 0 11:51 ttyp0 00:00:00 -bash
root 12246 11784 0 11:51 ttyp0 00:00:00 ps -ef
root 18358 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 /sbin/udevd -d
root 19499 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:03 brcm_iscsiuio
root 19776 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:01 syslogd -m 0
root 19785 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 klogd -x
dbus 19819 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 dbus-daemon --system
root 19881 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/sshd
root 19896 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 xinetd -stayalive -pidfile /var/run/xinetd.pid
tinydns 19963 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 /usr/local/bin/tinydns
root 19964 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 tcpserver -vDRHl0 -x tcp.cdb -- 0.0.0.0 53 /usr/local/bin/axfrdns
root 19976 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 sh ../sbin/kloxo-wrapper.sh
qmails 20232 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 qmail-send
qmaill 20241 20232 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 splogger qmail
root 20242 20232 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 qmail-lspawn |preline procmail
qmailr 20243 20232 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 qmail-rspawn
qmailq 20245 20232 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 qmail-clean
root 20338 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 /usr/libexec/courier-authlib/authdaemond
root 20340 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/tcpserver -v -R -H -l myvpsname 0 110 /usr/sbin/pop3login /usr/bin/pop3d Maildir
root 20342 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/tcpserver -v -R -H -l myvpsname 0 995 /usr/bin/couriertls -server -tcpd /usr/sbi
root 20344 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/tcpserver -v -R -H -l myvpsname 0 143 /usr/sbin/imaplogin /usr/bin/imapd Maildir
root 20346 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/tcpserver -v -R -H -l myvpsname 0 993 /usr/bin/couriertls -server -tcpd /usr/sbi
root 20380 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 crond
root 20417 20338 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 /usr/libexec/courier-authlib/authdaemond
avahi 20440 1 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 avahi-daemon: running [myvpsname.local]
avahi 20441 20440 0 Sep26 ? 00:00:00 avahi-daemon: chroot helper
root 26232 1 0 05:12 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.soc
mysql 26274 26232 0 05:12 ? 00:00:40 /usr/libexec/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --user=mysql --pid-file=/va
apache 32232 1 0 04:53 ? 00:01:46 /usr/sbin/lighttpd -f /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
lxlabs 32312 1 0 04:53 ? 00:00:00 /usr/local/lxlabs/ext/lxlighttpd/sbin/kloxo.httpd -f /usr/local/lxlabs/kloxo/file/light
root 32511 19976 0 04:54 ? 00:00:00 ../sbin/kloxo.exe master
In short, what are good techniques for reducing your usage of dcachesize? Because I am on a VPS, I don't have access to OpenVZ to raise this limit.
