Re: xfs and Linux Linux 2.6.22 and Memory

[David Chinner <dgc@xxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Sep 20, 2007 at 04:02:57PM -0500, Eric Sandeen wrote:
> Mariella Petrini wrote:
> 
> > QUESTION:
> > 
> > Is there any way to release that amount of memory
> > without unmounting the file systems ?
> > Is that caused to some caching mechanism ?
> > Or could that be caused by something else ?
> 
> It's most likely the linux VFS caching the dentries & inodes, and
> therefore caching the xfs inodes as well.

Not just inodes, but file data in the page cache as well.

If you want to blow it all away without unmountin filesystems, then
you should read up on /proc/sys/vm sysctls (i.e.
/proc/sys/vm/drop_caches)....

Cheers,

Dave.

-- 
Dave Chinner
Principal Engineer
SGI Australian Software Group