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Swap Usage - per user?

Posted by kshazad86, 12-29-2011, 06:36 AM
Currently the top command is showing '82484k' of swap memory being used. Is there any way I can find exactly who and what process is using the swap memory?
Posted by sarfios, 12-29-2011, 07:26 AM
Hello, @kshazad86 To sort the processes by their swap usage. Run top then press "O" [capital letter] then "p" and "enter".
Posted by kshazad86, 12-29-2011, 07:28 AM
Thanks, would you say a constant swap usage of 45396k is alot? What is a reasonable number?
Posted by sarfios, 12-29-2011, 07:55 AM
Once you run out of physical memory, you start using virtual memory (stores the data in memory on disk). This makes everything slower. The more it has to be exchanged, the slower it becomes, because of the "swapping" Eventually you will need more RAM. Last edited by sarfios; 12-29-2011 at 08:00 AM.
Posted by luki, 12-29-2011, 07:36 PM
45 MB isn't unreasonable. If you are not experiencing performance issues, then don't worry about it. I took a quick look at one of our servers, 54 MB in swap, 16 GB total system RAM. Server has been up for couple hundred days. Often the OS swaps out processes that have been dormant for a while.