MailScanner is responsible for SWAP usage!

[Richard Lynch]

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
>   

All processes use real memory and MS uses it's share.  If real memory is 
over committed then the system will swap.  Swapping isn't in and of 
itself  necessarily a bad thing.  If it's not impacting system 
performance then there's no need to be concerned.  You've given no 
indication of the impact swapping is having to the applications running 
on your system.  So, it's difficult for anyone to comment on your post.  
A 650KB swap file is nothing.   Nearly all of my systems have over 50MB 
of swap space in use.
 
All of my systems swap some.  When system performance suffers to 
unreasonable levels then it's time to buy more RAM.  Actually, with 
proper monitoring, I should buy more before it reaches that level.  It's 
all about acceptable system performance levels.   You need to use other 
mechanisms to determine that.  System load (uptime and others), vmstat, 
iostat, sar, top, etc are the tools you use to determine what's going on 
with your system.  Again, swapping isn't evil unless it's excessive and 
impacted the system workload adversely.  If it doesn't swap at all then 
I've wasted my money on too much RAM!  :).

Regards,
Richard

 

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