out of memory - Ubuntu 7.10 server - ZM 1.23.2

[Puun]

what i understand of any things like that one could be alwazs able to see what proccess is filling up the memory - top or htop, or ps. try to see what exactly is filling it

[helvetica]

Still the same memory problem = every motion detection = every record, my memory is growing up ca. 10 MB until it is full. Full 2GB!

Are my ZM-Settings ok (for this resolution 420x288...), here my screenshots:
http://www.you2.ch/mem.gif
http://www.you2.ch/zm_modect.gif
http://www.you2.ch/zm_option.gif

haus: with the command htop you can see now swap, but with the command free or top you can see the swap is beginning to grow up. Maybe I will beginn to check the ZM-Settings, can you give me your settings in ZM?

[monex]

hello,

I just had a look at your screenshots of your memory usage. Look at your screenshot where the output of the "free" command is displayed. You have an amount of 2067268 Bytes memory. From this memory 1742812 Bytes are used as cache. For the output looks just normal, because linux in general uses the unused memory as disk cache (in your case about 84% is used as cache), so the RAM is always close to full. For more informations you might have a look at http://gentoo-wiki.com/FAQ_Linux_Memory_Management

hope this helps

[haus]

Monex, thanks - interesting read.

Here's my "free":

Code: Select all

xxx@dvr:~$ free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       1555216    1467176      88040          0     121480     585620
-/+ buffers/cache:     760076     795140
Swap:      4554388         88    4554300
xxx@dvr:~$

Helvetica, you said "After that I have a very slow system." Can you be more specific about how your system slows down? With a load average of 0.05, your system shouldn't be slow. What kind of processor do you have?

[SlovakJoe]

As others have said, memory management in Linux can seem complex to the uninitiated. There are some decent articles on it though.

An oversimplified formula you can use is this:

total - cached = free memory

So by running `free`, you take the amounts from columns 'total' minus 'cached' and that's what's free on your system.

[helvetica]

Ok, I'm trying to understand the memory and commands (free, htop) we have here. Also I'm running again (new installation) ubuntu 7.10 zoneminder 1.23.3, waiting some time to get the memory full.
I hope we can find the problem of slowing down my ubuntu.

[pluttero]

hi all,
I have the same problem in gentoo with the following configuration:
4cameras 640x480 rgb24, 10fps
2gb ram run out after few hours, than it stays constant at 50MB free memory, but if somebody is watching the cameras (with montage feature) from a remote firefoz, the system easily crashes

[monex]

hi all,
I have the same problem in gentoo with the following configuration:
4cameras 640x480 rgb24, 10fps
2gb ram run out after few hours, than it stays constant at 50MB free memory,

That is the desired memory behavior on a linux system, and is not caused by zoneminder!

but if somebody is watching the cameras (with montage feature) from a remote firefoz, the system easily crashes

That is an other problem, which should not be caused by the memory usage.

Maybe it's a hardware problem, you can try to check your memory with memchek as a beginning.

hope this helps.

[haus]

You didn't say what the specs of your machine were, but pushing 10fps on 4 cams at 640x480 at RGB24 for an extended period of time could be tough on an older system.

[helvetica]

Hi
This task is resolved for me:
- it was not really a problem, I just did not exactly understud the way ubuntu is showing me free memory
- the fix for slowing down my system: After a fresh installation I have no more problems

tnx!