Rsync Memory Issues - Kernel 2.4.18 - Box Hangs

[Rick Parada]

Hi,

Im running a Dell 6450 w/ 4GB of memory, 2 2GB Swap Partitions. Redhat 7.3
kernel 2.4.18 (kernel.org). It runs our images for our site. We use rsync to
sync images from a main image box. It runs fine for maybe 4 days untill all
memory is in cache, and like 7MB of physical memory is free. The box will
hardly do anything, and cache will just keep going up and up untill no more
memory is free. Then when I run rsync (a memory hog) at night, kswapd and
rsync will compete with each other and send the cpu load through the roof.
Funny thing is the box won't really use swap at all. Then while the box is
rsyncing I cant even do simple things like SSH to the box. Why did older
kernels (2.2 kernels) work a whole lot better. Did older kernels swap a lot
better? Is there anything I can adjust in 2.4.18. Can I flush cache out
manually some how to return that memory back for use, for applications like
rsync. If I could do that my problems would be solved, since rsync runs
great with 1 GB of memory free. ANY HELP Would be much appreciative.

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       3997300    3918388      78912          0     472364    3056796
-/+ buffers/cache:     389228    3608072
Swap:      4192880       2460    4190420


 10:21am  up 6 days, 19:45,  2 users,  load average: 0.04, 0.03, 0.00
79 processes: 78 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU0 states:  0.1% user,  0.3% system,  0.0% nice, 99.1% idle
CPU1 states:  0.0% user,  0.2% system,  0.0% nice, 99.3% idle
CPU2 states:  0.0% user,  0.1% system,  0.0% nice, 99.4% idle
CPU3 states:  0.2% user,  0.0% system,  0.0% nice, 99.3% idle
Mem:  3997300K av, 3919908K used,   77392K free,       0K shrd,  472680K
buff
Swap: 4192880K av,    2460K used, 4190420K free                 3057584K
cached

  PID USER     PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM   TIME COMMAND
 7826 root      16   0  1040 1040   832 R     0.5  0.0   0:00 top
 2293 root       9   0  1736 1684  1400 S     0.1  0.0   0:00 sshd
 5776 nobody    10   0  1124 1108   972 S     0.1  0.0   0:00 httpd
 6385 nobody    11   0  1120 1104   968 S     0.1  0.0   0:00 httpd
 6707 nobody    10   0  1120 1108   976 S     0.1  0.0   0:00 httpd
 6919 nobody     9   0  1116 1100   964 S     0.1  0.0   0:00 httpd
    1 root      10   0   472  428   412 S     0.0  0.0  14:45 init
    2 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0  50:40 keventd
    3 root      19  19     0    0     0 SWN   0.0  0.0   0:00 ksoftirqd_CPU0
    4 root      19  19     0    0     0 SWN   0.0  0.0   0:00 ksoftirqd_CPU1
    5 root      19  19     0    0     0 SWN   0.0  0.0   0:00 ksoftirqd_CPU2
    6 root      19  19     0    0     0 SWN   0.0  0.0   0:00 ksoftirqd_CPU3
    7 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0 305:31 kswapd
    8 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00 bdflush
    9 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0  83:16 kupdated
   10 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0  13:08 kjournald
  122 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00 kjournald
  123 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   2:26 kreiserfsd
  124 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   1:05 kjournald
  125 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   4:50 kjournald
  126 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   4:29 kjournald
  537 root       9   0   604  536   500 S     0.0  0.0  11:27 syslogd
  542 root       9   0   444  428   428 S     0.0  0.0   0:00 klogd
  654 root       9   0  1024  912   828 S     0.0  0.0  13:34 sshd