X is consuming ~100 GiB of RAM(!)

Tue Dec 5 23:36:43 UTC 2017

Also, given the the high usage does not happen outside of gnome session, 
perhaps this is connected to compositing..

best

Vladimir Dergachev

On Wed, 6 Dec 2017, Hi-Angel wrote:

> The troubleshooting link you provided states that the high memory
> usage typically belongs to some other application. Sorry, I am just an
> occasional bystander here, and can't tell much of technical details,
> but I imagine it works like this(I hope someone will correct me on
> details): an app requests, for example, a glx object, and XServer
> allocates one. When the app is done with the object, it requests
> XServer to deallocate it. The point is: although this memory accounted
> on part of XServer process — it is actually owned by the app. The link
> also states that you can use `xrestop` application to see the owners
> and amounts of the memory.
>
> On 5 December 2017 at 21:14, Ewen Chan <chan.ewen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> To Whom It May Concern:
>>
>> Hello everybody. My name is Ewen and I am new to this distribution list.
>>
>> So let me start with a little bit of background and the problem statement of
>> what I am seeing/encountering.
>>
>> I am running a SuperMicro Server 6027TR-HTRF
>> (https://www.supermicro.com/products/system/2u/6027/sys-6027tr-htrf.cfm)
>> (which uses a Matrox G200eW graphics chip and it has four half-width nodes,
>> each node has two processor, each processor is an Intel Xeon E5-2690 (v1)
>> (8-core, 2.9 GHz stock, HTT disabled) running SuSE Linux Enterprise Server
>> 12 SP1 (SLES 12 SP1).
>>
>> Here are some of the outputs from the system:
>>
>> ewen at aes4:~> X -version
>>
>> X.Org X Server 1.15.2
>> Release Date: 2014-06-27
>> X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
>> Build Operating System: openSUSE SUSE LINUX
>> Current Operating System: Linux aes4 3.12.49-11-default #1 SMP Wed Nov 11
>> 20:52:43 UTC 2015 (8d714a0) x86_64
>> Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.12.49-11-default
>> root=UUID=fc4dcdb9-2468-422c-b29f-8da42fd7dec0
>> resume=/dev/disk/by-uuid/1d5d8a9c-218e-4b66-b094-f5154ab08434 splash=silent
>> quit showopts crashkernel=123M,high crashkernel=72M,low
>> Build Date: 12 November 2015  01:23:55AM
>>
>> Current version of pixman: 0.32.6
>>          Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
>>          to make sure that you have the latest version.
>> ewen at aes4:~> uname -a
>> Linux aes4 3.12.49-11-default #1 SMP Wed Nov 11 20:52:43 UTC 2015 (8d714a0)
>> x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
>>
>> The problem that I am having is that I am running a CAE analysis application
>> and during the course of the run, X will eventually consume close to 100 GiB
>> of RAM (out of 125 GiB installed)
>>
>> ewen at aes4:~> date
>> Tue Dec 5 05:08:28 EST 2017
>> ewen at aes4:~> ps aux | grep Xorg
>> root 2245 7.7 79.0 271100160 104332316 tty7 Ssl+ Nov25 1078:19 /usr/bin/Xorg
>> :0 -background none -verbose -auth /run/gdm/aut
>> h-for-gdm-9L7Ckz/database -seat seat0 -nolisten tcp vt7
>> ewen 11769 0.0 0.0 10500 944 pts/1 R+ 05:08 0:00 grep --color=auto Xorg
>>
>> This does not occur when I perform the same analysis in runlevel 3 and when
>> I switch back to runlevel 5 and I am using GNOME for the desktop
>> environment, regardless of whether I initiate the analysis via a Terminal
>> inside GNOME or I ssh into the system (via cygwin from a Windows box), the
>> host server's X memory usage will continually increase as the analysis
>> progresses.
>>
>> In trying to research this issue, I have found that I can either restrict
>> the amount of cache that X does via ulimit -m (Source:
>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/HighMemory) or I can edit
>> xorg.conf by adding this option:
>>
>> Option "XaaNoPixmapCache"
>>
>> (Source: https://www.x.org/releases/current/doc/man/man5/xorg.conf.5.xhtml)
>>
>> Would that be the recommended solution to the problem that I am experiencing
>> with X?
>>
>> A couple of other notes:
>>
>> ewen at aes4:~> free -g
>>              total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
>> Mem:           125        125          0          0          0          3
>> -/+ buffers/cache:        122          3
>> Swap:          256        170         85
>> ewen at aes4:~> cat /proc/sys/vm/vfs_cache_pressure
>> 200
>>
>> Your help and commentary would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Ewen Chan
>>
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