Too many processes question.
bram
bram at diomedia.be
Fri Jan 26 09:06:42 UTC 2007
Steve Siegfried schreef:
> Les wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 2007-01-25 at 14:02 -0600, Steve Siegfried wrote:
>>
>>> Les wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Wed, 2007-01-24 at 21:04 -0600, Steve Siegfried wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Les wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Ladies and gentlemen...
>>>>>> I have 104 processes listed when I run the monitor. My system is
>>>>>> slowing to a crawl, dropping internet connections and jerking like it
>>>>>> has epilepsy. Would someone please tell me how many process should be
>>>>>> running in a simple workstation setup (not a server).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Or better yet post a list.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Les H
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> It's actually more complicated than that. Response times & zippyness
>>>>> pretty much rely on:
>>>>> - how much spare capacity the cpu has,
>>>>> - how much memory is available,
>>>>> - amount of I/O (including networks) taking place
>>>>>
>>>>> A quick place to start looking for what's using all your horsepower
>>>>> is top(1) (it's in the procps package). Pids that clock lots of time
>>>>> are your first suspects.
>>>>>
>>>>> See also: nice(1).
>>>>>
>>>>> Hope this helps,
>>>>>
>>>>> -S
>>>>>
>>>> Here is the output:
>>>> # top -b -n 1
>>>> top - 10:38:49 up 1 day, 19:16, 1 user, load average: 0.19, 0.52, 0.79
>>>> Tasks: 113 total, 1 running, 112 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
>>>> Cpu(s): 11.3%us, 1.5%sy, 0.1%ni, 85.8%id, 1.2%wa, 0.1%hi, 0.0%si,
>>>> 0.0%st
>>>> Mem: 254824k total, 248528k used, 6296k free, 3076k buffers
>>>> Swap: 524280k total, 87628k used, 436652k free, 68036k cached
>>>>
>>>> PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
>>>> 17220 root 15 0 2156 912 704 R 5.6 0.4 0:00.07 top
>>>> 1 root 15 0 2032 564 540 S 0.0 0.2 0:02.88 init
>>>> 2 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 migration/0
>>>> 3 root 34 19 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.03 ksoftirqd/0
>>>> 4 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 watchdog/0
>>>> 5 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.63 events/0
>>>> 6 root 14 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.05 khelper
>>>> 7 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.02 kthread
>>>> 53 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.30 kblockd/0
>>>> 54 root 20 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 cqueue/0
>>>> 55 root 20 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 ksuspend_usbd
>>>> 58 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.03 khubd
>>>> 60 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.02 kseriod
>>>> 88 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kapmd
>>>> 93 root 15 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:02.13 pdflush
>>>> 94 root 15 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:02.21 pdflush
>>>> 95 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:08.64 kswapd0
>>>> 96 root 20 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 aio/0
>>>> 257 root 11 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kpsmoused
>>>> 279 root 12 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 ata/0
>>>> 280 root 12 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 ata_aux
>>>> 287 root 13 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kmirrord
>>>> 292 root 14 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 ksnapd
>>>> 295 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:11.12 kjournald
>>>> 328 root 11 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kauditd
>>>> 362 root 17 -4 2916 372 336 S 0.0 0.1 0:01.39 udevd
>>>> 598 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.01 kgameportd
>>>> 697 root 11 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 ac97/0
>>>> 1289 root 13 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kmpathd/0
>>>> 1323 root 13 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kjournald
>>>> 1813 root 15 0 9540 4716 324 S 0.0 1.9 0:00.11 restorecond
>>>> 1824 root 18 0 1696 516 472 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.37 syslogd
>>>> 1827 root 18 0 1644 380 328 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.07 klogd
>>>> 1854 root 15 0 2124 312 264 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.97 mcstransd
>>>> 1867 rpc 16 0 1780 396 392 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 portmap
>>>> 1921 root 15 0 4924 260 236 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.05 rpc.idmapd
>>>> 1941 dbus 18 0 13080 1248 984 S 0.0 0.5 0:36.77 dbus-daemon
>>>> 1993 root 19 0 6260 752 636 S 0.0 0.3 0:08.64 automount
>>>> 2038 root 18 0 15292 332 328 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.01 hpiod
>>>> 2043 root 15 0 13032 856 580 S 0.0 0.3 0:02.32 python
>>>> 2089 ntp 15 0 4840 4840 3856 S 0.0 1.9 0:00.87 ntpd
>>>> 2115 root 15 0 8984 832 636 S 0.0 0.3 0:01.25 sendmail
>>>> 2126 smmsp 15 0 7920 636 524 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.05 sendmail
>>>> 2138 root 15 0 1868 280 260 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.37 gpm
>>>> 2149 root 18 0 5392 612 544 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.51 crond
>>>> 2182 xfs 18 0 4132 1188 500 S 0.0 0.5 0:01.16 xfs
>>>> 2213 root 18 0 2584 344 300 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.02 atd
>>>> 2229 root 18 0 47464 31m 3000 S 0.0 12.6 15:29.20 yum-updatesd
>>>> 2257 haldaemo 15 0 6560 2216 1252 S 0.0 0.9 1:45.20 hald
>>>> 2258 root 15 0 3104 892 804 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.09 hald-runner
>>>> 2266 haldaemo 18 0 2348 576 572 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 hald-addon-keyb
>>>> 2270 haldaemo 15 0 2344 576 572 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 hald-addon-keyb
>>>> 2278 haldaemo 15 0 2344 604 580 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.59 hald-addon-keyb
>>>> 2288 root 18 0 1920 528 508 S 0.0 0.2 0:11.16 hald-addon-stor
>>>> 2290 root 18 0 1924 528 508 S 0.0 0.2 0:05.41 hald-addon-stor
>>>> 2326 root 15 0 1960 768 624 S 0.0 0.3 0:06.07 dhcdbd
>>>> 2342 root 15 0 14544 1528 1332 S 0.0 0.6 0:06.01 NetworkManager
>>>> 2358 root 15 0 3156 988 868 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.03 NetworkManagerD
>>>> 2453 root 18 0 1952 432 284 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.21 smartd
>>>> 2461 root 18 0 1624 368 364 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 mingetty
>>>> 2462 root 18 0 1628 368 364 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 mingetty
>>>> 2463 root 19 0 1628 368 364 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 mingetty
>>>> 2464 root 20 0 1624 368 364 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 mingetty
>>>> 2465 root 21 0 1628 368 364 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 mingetty
>>>> 2466 root 23 0 1628 368 364 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 mingetty
>>>> 2541 root 18 0 4488 988 984 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.01 prefdm
>>>> 2544 root 15 0 15376 1956 1952 S 0.0 0.8 0:00.32 gdm-binary
>>>> 2633 root 18 0 15764 1768 1712 S 0.0 0.7 0:00.39 gdm-binary
>>>> 4079 root 15 0 9748 1204 1088 S 0.0 0.5 0:02.89 cupsd
>>>> 9138 lesh 15 0 2520 1132 960 S 0.0 0.4 0:05.79 gam_server
>>>> 11489 root 15 0 33772 13m 6200 S 0.0 5.5 18:23.24 Xorg
>>>> 11712 lesh 15 0 22416 5296 4312 S 0.0 2.1 0:00.88 gnome-session
>>>> 11768 lesh 18 0 4288 344 220 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.03 ssh-agent
>>>> 11771 lesh 18 0 2736 484 404 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 dbus-launch
>>>> 11772 lesh 15 0 13080 972 728 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.24 dbus-daemon
>>>> 11779 lesh 16 0 7480 3760 1656 S 0.0 1.5 0:06.36 gconfd-2
>>>> 11782 lesh 20 0 2532 536 456 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 gnome-keyring-d
>>>> 11784 lesh 15 0 33364 5932 4620 S 0.0 2.3 0:10.97 gnome-settings-
>>>> 11800 lesh 15 0 17664 8088 5932 S 0.0 3.2 0:44.01 metacity
>>>> 11804 lesh 15 0 66300 4456 3660 S 0.0 1.7 0:28.23 gnome-power-man
>>>> 11807 lesh 18 0 70660 9.8m 7324 S 0.0 4.0 0:10.75 gnome-panel
>>>> 11809 lesh 20 0 105m 8924 7368 S 0.0 3.5 0:07.55 nautilus
>>>> 11814 lesh 15 0 38528 2152 1620 S 0.0 0.8 0:00.99 bonobo-activati
>>>> 11822 lesh 16 0 11164 2380 2036 S 0.0 0.9 0:00.14 gnome-vfs-daemo
>>>> 11826 lesh 15 0 69672 9.8m 7344 S 0.0 3.9 0:14.49 wnck-applet
>>>> 11830 lesh 15 0 97148 5552 5004 S 0.0 2.2 0:00.46 trashapplet
>>>> 11839 lesh 15 0 16056 4428 3652 S 0.0 1.7 0:09.53 gnome-screensav
>>>> 11847 lesh 15 0 22564 5112 4596 S 0.0 2.0 0:00.43 notification-ar
>>>> 11849 lesh 15 0 69080 6404 5668 S 0.0 2.5 0:02.73 mixer_applet2
>>>> 11851 lesh 19 0 27900 7004 5800 S 0.0 2.7 0:05.77 clock-applet
>>>> 11863 lesh 15 0 2440 728 692 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.55 mapping-daemon
>>>> 11871 lesh 16 0 44236 4996 4652 S 0.0 2.0 0:00.42 eggcups
>>>> 11879 lesh 15 0 22116 3112 3104 S 0.0 1.2 0:00.10 gnome-volume-ma
>>>> 11886 lesh 15 0 24580 8460 5444 S 0.0 3.3 0:01.43 puplet
>>>> 11887 lesh 15 0 89664 20m 9572 S 0.0 8.3 2:23.51 beagled
>>>> 11891 lesh 15 0 68256 8604 6736 S 0.0 3.4 2:15.95 nm-applet
>>>> 11898 lesh 18 0 5900 1032 1028 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.04 escd
>>>> 11960 lesh 15 0 14900 3464 3128 S 0.0 1.4 0:06.72 pam-panel-icon
>>>> 12052 root 15 0 1804 616 516 S 0.0 0.2 0:03.32 pam_timestamp_c
>>>> 12155 lesh 15 0 100m 5640 3776 S 0.0 2.2 0:01.80 evolution-data-
>>>> 13644 lesh 22 0 70940 7724 6228 S 0.0 3.0 0:00.49 evolution-alarm
>>>> 16910 lesh 30 15 38172 14m 7888 S 0.0 6.0 0:06.58 beagled-helper
>>>> 16981 lesh 15 0 60916 8372 5792 S 0.0 3.3 0:01.19 notification-da
>>>> 16984 root 15 0 2280 1088 788 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.01 dhclient
>>>> 17057 lesh 15 0 188m 24m 16m S 0.0 9.8 0:27.39 evolution
>>>> 17104 lesh 15 0 31132 26m 2564 S 0.0 10.5 0:08.36 spamd
>>>> 17108 lesh 18 0 31264 25m 1996 S 0.0 10.3 0:00.47 spamd
>>>> 17112 lesh 15 0 83784 12m 8472 S 0.0 5.1 0:21.06 gnome-terminal
>>>> 17117 lesh 18 0 2440 664 564 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.01 gnome-pty-helpe
>>>> 17118 lesh 16 0 4624 1432 1156 S 0.0 0.6 0:00.19 bash
>>>> 17149 lesh 15 0 80044 19m 13m S 0.0 7.9 0:06.39 gedit
>>>> 17151 root 18 0 4808 1208 956 S 0.0 0.5 0:00.05 su
>>>> 17155 root 15 0 4624 1444 1168 S 0.0 0.6 0:00.15 bash
>>>>
>>>> [root at localhost ~]#
>>>>
>>>> Other that just entirely too many things running, this doesn't seem to
>>>> tell much about the problem.
>>>> Note that I run Gnome desktop, but there are a large number of items
>>>> beginning with "k", which I thought indicated
>>>> the KDE versions of software.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Les H
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Okay... first: was your system sluggish when you grabbed the output
>>> above? If not, it's probably not much use in diagnosing the problem.
>>> Your average system load looks light, so you're clearly not continously
>>> beating the CPU to death.
>>>
>> This also applies to swap. I am not getting much swap action either.
>>
>
> If I remember an earlier post correctly, you've oversubscribed memory by about
> 150%, so you _are_ swapping. The issue with swapping is not whether or not
> it's happening, but when it happens, how much and how often.
>
>
>>> Second: yum-updatesd seems to have accumulated 15 and a half minutes
>>> of cpu time. Is that process stuck somehow? You don't usually see yum
>>> related stuff taking that much cpu time.
>>>
>>>
>> When running firefox, I was seeing CPU nearly 100% a lot and never less
>> than about 40%.
>> There doesn't seem to be much difference with system monitor running or
>> not.
>>
>>
>>> Third: Xorg has clocked over 18 minutes, which seems high, especially
>>> since your box has been up slightly more than 43 hours. This tells me
>>> that you've either got a real slow cpu/graphic combo or you've got a
>>> ton of automatic graphic stuff running. You might look at a simplier
>>> (less graphic intensive) window manager.
>>>
>> 433Mhz CPU, ATI Rage MB graphics.
>>
>
> 433Mhz? Ouch! So this is a Pentium-2 or Pentium-3, right? With 256MB
> of memory, right? That slow and that small make running <ahem> "large"
> programs painful... programs like firefox tend to force smaller programs
> to swap in order to generate enough room to run.
>
>
>
>>> Fourth: Looks like your box only has 256MB of memory. This is kinda
>>> small for most recent Linux boxen. Further, as of the snapshot above,
>>> you're using over 87MB of swap space. This probably means that your
>>> box is quietly swapping itself silly. Is the disk light on a lot
>>> or, if the light isn't hooked up, can you hear the disk drives a lot?
>>> My guess is yes.
>>>
>>>
>> Not really. The light is broken somehow, but the drive is mostly
>> silent.
>>
>
> Actually, modern drives are pretty quiet and you can't always hear 'em
> when they move the read/write head by small amounts. Without the drive
> light working, it may be tough to tell by ear when the drives are doing I/O.
>
>
>>>
>>> Recommendations:
>>> 1- For each hard drive ($X) you've got, run:
>>> hdparm /dev/hd$X
>>> and make sure the "using_dma" line says "1 (on)". If using_dma
>>> isn't "1 (on)", then examine your BIOS settings at the next
>>> boot for that drive to make sure that DMA is 1) supported,
>>> 2) enabled, and 3) that the drive itself actually supports DMA.
>>>
>> 2 drives, DMA on both.
>>
>
> Good.
>
>
>
>>> 2- Look at the list of daemons/servers you're currently running
>>> and get rid of any you don't absolutely need.
>>>
>> I believe this is the problem, so I posted the top list. None of the
>> daemon processes
>> seems to be non-essential to my admittedly old eyes.
>> I have the following services running:
>> Network Manager
>> NetworkManagerDispatcher
>> acpid
>> anacron
>> atd
>> autofs.
>> cpuspeed
>> crond
>> cups
>> gpm
>> Haldaemon
>> hplip
>> ip6tables
>> iptables
>> kudzu
>> lm_sensors
>> Kudzu
>> lmsensors
>> mcstrans
>> mdmpd
>> messagebus
>> gpm
>> ip6tables
>> iptables
>> nscd and ntpd
>>
>
> James Wilkinson's previous post to the Fedora list about what to turn off
> is pretty complete. I'd argue over a couple of 'em (like gpm and sshd),
> but you could just as easily start by turning off the stuff he recommends
> and then turning stuff back on one at a time until you hit a performance
> snag, too.
>
>
>>
>>
>>> 3- Buy more memory. Shoot for 1GB if your wallet can stand it,
>>> but make sure your motherboard can support it (almost all
>>> recent ones can).
>>>
>>> After all the above:
>>>
>>> 3- Look into why yum-updatesd is sucking so much CPU time.
>>>
>>> 4- Look at a more modern graphic card
>>>
>>> Hope this helps,
>>>
>>> -S
>>>
>
> Given all that's in this thread, especially the 433Mhz/256MB cpu/memory
> info, I'd strongly recommend you look at 512MB or even 1024MB worth
> of memory. If your CPU is a Pentium 2 or Pentium 3, memory should
> be fairly cheap at your local BestBuy or CircuitCity. If I recall
> correctly, it ought to be PC100 or PC133 memory, but take your box
> (or just the memory SIMs if you're comfortable removing 'em and have a
> ground strap to use while doing so) with you to make sure they give you
> the right kind of SIMs. If you have the hardware manual that came with
> your computer, it'll tell you in there, too (and will also tell you what
> the upper limit for memory is as well).
>
> Adding memory will NOT speed up your computer until you start using
> enough memory that the old configuration would have started swapping.
> Once you hit that point, you'll notice a considerable difference...
> like when running FireFox with 512MB of memory fer instance.
>
> If adding memory is not an option, then work on getting rid of the
> memory pigs. Turn off auto-yum and run it manually every so often,
> start using a smaller browser (galeon?) and/or quit firefox when not
> actively browsing, turn off spamd and use spamassassin via the method
> described when you type "rpm -qi spamassassin", et cetera. And try not
> to run more than one memory-piggish thing at a time if possible.
>
> Good luck with this ('cause I think you're gonna need some :-)
>
> -S
>
>
Also you might want to try the opera web browser, it's not as "big" as
firefox.
Also xfce would be a better choice than gnome for slow machines.
I run opera and xfce on an IBM thinkpad (366Mhz,128MB RAM) and it's
workable (Core 5 not 6).
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