MailScanner is responsible for SWAP usage!

[Jon Radel]

Michael S. wrote:
> What's the point? If you can't see my point then I can't help you with that.
> 
> Here is the point for clarification. 3 x 20MB = 60MB of ram that is
> supposedly used by MS. We process less than 1,200 messages a day on this
> server in total. So the question is, why does the box swap when MS is
> installed on a box with 4GB of memory? One the boxes that do not have MS
> installed we are running the identical setup and there is ZERO SWAPPING. If
> I remove MS and reboot the server there is no swapping.
> 
> Hope this clarifies the point I was trying to make which obviously you
> didn't get from the original message.
> 
> Thanks

Oh, you're so asking for people to gang up on you.  Why?  Not a troll
are you?

Some other random points:

1)  Sweeping many details under the proverbial carpet, operating systems
tend to swap when the total memory requirements of ALL PROCESSES exceed
the physical RAM available.  Blaming the swapping on MS simply because
it was the last major install on what you effectively called a busy web
server seems a touch silly.  I suspect that if you shut down the web
server, memory utilization would also drop.

2) You're now batting 0% on people taking the time to respond to you not
getting your point, so your statement: " If you can't see my point then
I can't help you with that," is probably false.  I suspect that if you
actually wrote an articulate statement of what your point was, it would
go a long way towards comprehension on the part of your readers.

Do you want us to make recommendations on how to avoid ever swapping?
It would help if you explained why you desire this so strongly.  (Hint,
you might wish to care about the rate of swapping much more than you
care about the overall amount of swap space used, especially when it's a
mere 650K.  Also, without knowing even which OS you're using, never mind
little details about how much RAM is being used for, oh, useful things
like file caching, it's hard to have a conversation that rises above:
"The sky is falling, the sky is falling!")

Do you wish to provide humor on a slow Sunday with dire statements about
how adding a large suite of software to a busy server caused swap
utilization to creep up to, OMG, 650K?  (I'll admit that I got good
chuckle out of your original mail.)

Do you want advice on how to actually analyze the problem in a useful
fashion with real numbers?  Start by giving us real details, not "the
last program installed is obviously the one which causes swapping."

--Jon Radel
Troll bait on a slow Sunday