volf@eba.eb.ele.tue.nl (frank volf) (03/04/91)
Hi,
I just noticed something strange while using the ps command. On one of
our nodes processes are marked with a '>'. It looks like this:
% ps aux //ebe
USER PID SZ RSS TTY STAT TIME COMMAND
root 1 1280 22 ? S>< 0:30 [ init ]
root 2 0 0 ? R 5382:15 null
root 3 0 0 ? S 0:07 purifier
root 4 0 0 ? S 0:07 purifier
root 5 0 0 ? S 11:54 unwired_dxm
root 6 0 0 ? S 0:00 pinger
root 7 0 0 ? S 1:38 netreceive
root 8 0 0 ? S 1:54 netpaging
root 9 0 0 ? S 0:33 wired_dxm
root 10 0 0 ? R 1:04 netrequest
root 1131 1888 117 ? S> 16:05 [ tcpd ]
root 1137 2048 109 ? S> 0:20 [ syslogd ]
root 1140 1920 72 ? S> 1:29 [ routed ]
root 1144 1920 33 ? S> 0:00 [ inetd ]
root 1147 2176 184 ? S> 0:26 [ named ]
root 1151 2048 146 ? S> 1:15 [ rwhod ]
root 1158 2112 34 ? S> 3:06 [ llbd ]
root 1162 608 185 ? S> 3:42 [ cron ]
root 1169 608 8 ? S> 0:00 [ dpci ]
user 1175 832 298 ? S> 0:12 [ spm ]
root 1177 736 420 ? S> 0:33 [ netman ]
user 1178 928 60 ? S> 0:03 [ mbx_helper ]
user 1180 768 6 ? S> 0:00 [ writed ]
root 1184 3392 122 ? S>< 0:13 [ Xapollo ]
sys_pers 5023 2176 267 ? S>< 0:04 [ dm ]
jan 5061 4032 126 remote R>< 261:06 [ hmd_mach06mod5_200 ]
according to the manual the ">" idicates processes which have specified
a soft limit on memory requirements and which is exceeding that limit.
First question: Why are these processes exceeding their memory limits? Note that
this node has never showed this problem before. All others nodes
do not have this problem.
But it gets stranger.
One of the "features" of Apollo Domain OS is the ability of using renice by an ordinairy
user for any process. If I do a renice 0 5061 to give this process normal priority. The
">" disappears for all processes!
But wait, If I renice process 5061 to a very low priority (renice 5061 15) then the ">"
appears again for all processes.
Second question: Can anyone explane this????
Thanx,
Frank
Frank Volf (volf@eb.ele.tue.nl)
Eindhoven University of Technology
Digital Systems Group, Room EH10.08
P.O. 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands