strange webAccess processes

[kri-2]

Hi all,

just wondered why the serviceconsole of our 3.02 esx host (running 23 vms) needs a lot of memory:

cat /proc/meminfo

MemTotal: 799424 kB

MemFree: 44876 kB

After starting top and pressing "M" for sorting by mem there is a big list of webAccess processes:

1106 root 25 0 66928 65M 1528 S 0.0 8.3 0:02 0 webAccess

1136 root 15 0 66928 65M 1528 S 0.0 8.3 0:00 0 webAccess

1137 root 15 0 66928 65M 1528 S 0.0 8.3 0:00 0 webAccess

...

There are at least 30 of these webAccess processes (thats what I can see - then the page is at the end and I can not scroll in top)

Does anyone know, where they come from and why they need 65MB/ps?

Chris

[Texiwill · Accepted solution]

Hello,

Using /proc/meminfo to determine if you have enough 'free' memory is not very useful as Linux in general will not have much free memory over a long runtime. Free Mem is the amount of memory not currently allocated to pages. ONce it is allocated to a page it is no longer free, but the page may or may not be in use. So that particular value is not much use. You really just want to pay attention to swap usage. If you are swapping then you have issues.

As for webAccess, do you use it? If you do then you will get one process/thread per use. By default there are at least 2 running at all times unless you disable webAcces s I do not use webAccess so do not see many of these processes, however when I do use it, they do appear.

65 is a bit much I think. Personally I would not let just anyone have remote console access, let them SSH, VNC, or use RDP instead.

Best regards,

Edward

[kri-2]

thanks, that post helped me understanding it a bit!

To watch the swap I can use this on, right?

Am I right that I should worry if the SwapCached increases or are these 2060kB allready a bad sign?

cat /proc/meminfo |grep Swap

Swap: 1077501952 101732352 975769600

SwapCached: 2060 kB

SwapTotal: 1052248 kB

SwapFree: 952900 kB

edit:

just found another host swapping 40MB:

cat /proc/meminfo |grep Swap

Swap: 1077501952 546807808 530694144

SwapCached: 39512 kB

SwapTotal: 1052248 kB

SwapFree: 518256 kB

So again: what values should me start to worry about?

Chris