topic DFM 3.6 -Sybase - High memory use on linux host machine, Any suggestions? in Active IQ Unified Manager Discussions

DFM 3.6 -Sybase - High memory use on linux host machine, Any suggestions?

joezoda — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:31:53 GMT

About DataFabric® Manager server
Version	3.6 (3.6R1)
Serial Number	1-50-003808

Administrator Name	root
Host Name	miadfm01

Host Full Name	miadfm01
Node Limit	15 (currently managing 4)
Operating System	Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 3 (Taroon Update 9) 2.4.21-27.EL i686
CPU Count	1
System Memory	3014 MB (load: 19%)

cat /opt/NTAPdfm/conf/sybase.conf

-n MonitorDB_miadfm01

-o "/opt/NTAPdfm/log/sybase.log"

-os 10000000

-gd all

-gl all

-gk all

#-gn 64

-gn 32

#-ti 1440

-ti 240

-gp 8192

-ct-

-x SharedMemory,tcpip

-ud

Re: DFM 3.6 -Sybase - High memory use on linux host machine, Any suggestions?

rranga — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:45:47 GMT

Could you provide us

1. output from "top" command

2. conents of /proc/meminfo file?

Re: DFM 3.6 -Sybase - High memory use on linux host machine, Any suggestions?

rranga — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:50:04 GMT

Some theory related to it high memory usage:

The Linuxkernel maitains disk cache globally. So files can remain in cache

even after the process that was using them finish execution, because they

might be used by another process. Freeing the cache would mean discarding

cached data. So the kernel tries to keep the cached data as long as possible.

Hence the memory is not freed immediately, but gradually based on the need for

some other purpose/process.

Pages only become free when they're evicted to build up the free pool (like

through a garbage collector), or when nothing useful can be stored in them.

This causes the Linux kernel to hold the cache memory until an explicit

request comes. So the memory load looks big.

Re: DFM 3.6 -Sybase - High memory use on linux host machine, Any suggestions?

joezoda — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:53:46 GMT

We were running with 2 gigs - and i was able to bump it up to 3 gigs - but i think the mem use may be creeping up again...

cat /proc/meminfo
total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
Mem: 3160662016 579219456 2581442560 0 178278400 185606144
Swap: 1077501952 0 1077501952
MemTotal: 3086584 kB
MemFree: 2520940 kB
MemShared: 0 kB
Buffers: 174100 kB
Cached: 181256 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 366960 kB
ActiveAnon: 109424 kB
ActiveCache: 257536 kB
Inact_dirty: 74768 kB
Inact_laundry: 22656 kB
Inact_clean: 0 kB
Inact_target: 92876 kB
HighTotal: 2228160 kB
HighFree: 1932884 kB
LowTotal: 858424 kB
LowFree: 588056 kB
SwapTotal: 1052248 kB
SwapFree: 1052248 kB
Committed_AS: 550096 kB
HugePages_Total: 0
HugePages_Free: 0
Hugepagesize: 4096 kB

[root@miadfm01 root]# ps aux|grep dfm
root 1306 0.2 1.6 375176 50024 ? S Jan12 2:50 /opt/NTAPdfm/sbin/dbsrv9 @/opt/NTAPdfm/conf/sybase.conf
root 1357 0.0 0.0 5060 2464 ? S Jan12 0:00 /opt/NTAPdfm/sbin/httpd -f /opt/NTAPdfm/conf/httpd.conf
root 1358 0.0 0.0 3008 1024 ? S Jan12 0:00 /opt/NTAPdfm/sbin/rotatelogs /opt/NTAPdfm/log/error.log
root 1359 0.0 0.0 3008 1032 ? S Jan12 0:00 /opt/NTAPdfm/sbin/rotatelogs /opt/NTAPdfm/log/access.log
root 1365 0.0 0.1 73124 4360 ? S Jan12 0:00 /opt/NTAPdfm/sbin/dfmeventd start
root 1366 0.0 0.2 116976 7204 ? S Jan12 0:02 /opt/NTAPdfm/sbin/dfmmonitor
root 1367 0.0 0.1 37384 4872 ? S Jan12 0:00 /opt/NTAPdfm/sbin/dfmscheduler
root 1368 0.0 1.5 259888 48052 ? S Jan12 0:03 /opt/NTAPdfm/sbin/dfmserver
root 1369 0.7 0.0 6480 2708 ? S Jan12 10:23 /opt/NTAPdfm/sbin/dfmwatchdog

11:49:08 up 21:49, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.02, 0.00
65 processes: 63 sleeping, 2 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: cpu user nice system irq softirq iowait idle
total 0.0% 0.0% 1.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 98.6%
Mem: 3086584k av, 565644k used, 2520940k free, 0k shrd, 174092k buff
367196k active, 74768k inactive
Swap: 1052248k av, 0k used, 1052248k free 181256k cached

PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM TIME CPU COMMAND
1369 root 16 0 2708 2708 2160 S 0.7 0.0 10:23 0 dfmwatchdog
1 root 15 0 500 500 440 S 0.0 0.0 0:03 0 init
2 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 keventd
3 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 kapmd
4 root 34 19 0 0 0 SWN 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 ksoftirqd/0
7 root 25 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 bdflush
5 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 kswapd
6 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:29 0 kscand
8 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 kupdated
9 root 25 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 mdrecoveryd
20 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 kjournald
620 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 kjournald
621 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 kjournald
622 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 kjournald
623 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 kjournald
624 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 kjournald
625 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 kjournald
944 root 15 0 588 588 504 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 syslogd
948 root 22 0 468 468 404 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 klogd
974 rpc 21 0 580 580 504 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 portmap
993 rpcuser 25 0 716 716 636 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 rpc.statd
1004 root 15 0 412 412 352 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 mdadm
1052 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 vmmemctl
1085 root 16 0 612 612 528 S 0.0 0.0 0:06 0 vmware-guestd
1104 root RT 0 660 660 520 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 auditd
1156 root 24 0 516 516 460 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 apmd
1197 root 15 0 3944 3944 2356 S 0.0 0.1 0:07 0 snmpd
1220 root 25 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 khubd
1234 root 16 0 1552 1552 1300 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 sshd
1248 root 24 0 880 880 760 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 xinetd
1276 root 15 0 2564 2564 1896 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 sendmail
1285 smmsp 15 0 2288 2280 1740 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 sendmail
1295 root 25 0 472 472 420 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 0 gpm
1306 root 20 0 50024 48M 2240 S 0.0 1.6 2:50 0 dbsrv9

Re: DFM 3.6 -Sybase - High memory use on linux host machine, Any suggestions?

smoot — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:51:37 GMT

Why do you say you've got high Sybase memory usage? I'm not disputing it, I just don't see anything in the data you posted which would lead to that conclusion. The "System Memory" line from "dfm diag" seems to indicate you're only using 19% of your memory.

Look in dfmwatchdog.log to see how much memory all of the DFM processes are using. It would be interesting to know if the Sybase memory spiked or it's been growing slowly over time. Typically it grows for a while after starting up then levels off after a day or so. If it spiked up, it would be interesting to know if some other process spiked at the same time.

More often than not, when memory usage spikes it's because we're getting behind processing events. That doesn't exactly match because what you typically see is a sharp growth in the memory used by dfmmonitor and eventd.

Re: DFM 3.6 -Sybase - High memory use on linux host machine, Any suggestions?

joezoda — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:18:55 GMT

pete - thanks that watchdog file is very helpfull -here is a snip below [just a grep on dbsrv9]. I guess it will be ok If things do smooth out.

You ever work with the sybase.conf file to keep things in check? - Joe

Jan 12 13:44:14 [dfmwatchdog: INFO]: dbsrv9 is back up at 12 Jan 13:44; pid = 1306
Jan 12 13:44:14 [dfmwatchdog: INFO]: dbsrv9 up 0 seconds, mem = 26.1 MB, cpu = 0.0%, db = 262 MB, log = 67.3 MB
Jan 12 13:44:19 [dfmwatchdog: INFO]: dbsrv9 up 5 seconds, mem = 31.6 MB, cpu = 55.7%, db = 262 MB, log = 67.3 MB
Jan 12 13:44:29 [dfmwatchdog: INFO]: dbsrv9 up 15 seconds, mem = 36.2 MB, cpu = 76.5%, db = 263 MB, log = 67.3 MB
Jan 12 13:44:34 [dfmwatchdog: INFO]: dbsrv9 up 20 seconds, mem = 36.5 MB, cpu = 49.5%, db = 263 MB, log = 67.3 MB
Jan 12 13:44:54 [dfmwatchdog: INFO]: dbsrv9 up 40 seconds, mem = 38.0 MB, cpu = 17.2%, db = 265 MB, log = 67.6 MB
Jan 12 13:45:14 [dfmwatchdog: INFO]: dbsrv9 up 1.0 minutes, mem = 38.5 MB, cpu = 3.2%, db = 265 MB, log = 67.6 MB
Jan 12 14:02:56 [dfmwatchdog: INFO]: dbsrv9 up -1.0 years, mem = 42.9 MB, cpu = 0.0%, db = 268 MB, log = 67.6 MB
Jan 12 14:03:11 [dfmwatchdog: INFO]: dbsrv9 up -1.0 years, mem = 48.1 MB, cpu = 7.9%, db = 269 MB, log = 67.6 MB

Re: DFM 3.6 -Sybase - High memory use on linux host machine, Any suggestions?

joezoda — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:12:37 GMT

Memory Maxed out on this linux machine again - had to reboot - any suggestions?

Re: DFM 3.6 -Sybase - High memory use on linux host machine, Any suggestions?

smoot — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:09:24 GMT

Hi Joe --

I think you should open a case with NetApp support. From the dfmwatchdog snippet you posted, something is weird. Among other things, why was the database reported being up negative one year? NGS can help you diagnose the problem more effectively than this forum can.

-- Pete

Re: DFM 3.6 -Sybase - High memory use on linux host machine, Any suggestions?

joezoda — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:15:53 GMT

-Will do and thanks to all for the help. -Joe

Re: DFM 3.6 -Sybase - High memory use on linux host machine, Any suggestions?

joezoda — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:32:15 GMT

Just wanted to close up this thread...

I upgraded the HOST OS - Linux

I upgraded the Version of DFM

- And all is well

About DataFabric® Manager server
Version	3.8 (3.8)
Serial Number	1-50-003808

Administrator Name	root
Host Name	miadfm01.bftg.com
Host IP Address	10.10.17.38
Host Full Name	miadfm01.bftg.com
Operations Manager Node limit	15 (currently managing 4)
Operating System	Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.4 (Tikanga) 2.6.18-164.15.1.el5 i686
CPU Count	1
System Memory	3042 MB (load excluding cached memory: 27%)
Installation Directory	/opt/NTAPdfm 19.8 GB free (57.4%)

Re: DFM 3.6 -Sybase - High memory use on linux host machine, Any suggestions?

adaikkap — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 11:21:40 GMT

Hi,

I would suggest you to upgrade to 3.8.1 which is a GA release.

Regards

adai