rsync 2.6.0 - suspected memory leak bug

[Kelly Garrett]

Jim Salter <jim <at> jrssystems.net> writes:

> 
> IANALG (I Am Not A Linux Guy - FreeBSD is my *nix of choice), but could 
> this possibly be related to the mem:remap Linux kernel bug that was 
> recently discovered?
> 
> Jim Salter
> 

It just might have something to do with this.  I have come to the conclusion 
that there is a problem with Linux releaseing cache memory back to processes.  
Being that I am not a Linux kernel guru, I am about to go through the kernel 
sources and make environment to see if I can disble, or severely limit, disk 
cacheing on these boxes.  With a 400+ GB database on these systems, the "cache 
hit" success rate (even with a 4GB cache) would be near nil in any event (1% on 
a good day with a 4GB cache), making any cache just wasted space.  I would much 
rather get input from someone who has done this before and knows what the end 
results are...doing it myself is the least favored solution, since this will be 
a well exposed production resource.

This may be of interest to the rsync group, if they start having machines crash 
during heavy rsync activity they need to know it is not necessarily an rsync 
problem - rsync just exposed a flaw in the OS.

Cheers

Kelly